


Those Blizzard Months

by midnighteverlark (orphan_account)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/M, First Time, Hijacked Peeta, Intimacy, Oral Sex, is that a spoiler? should I not add that as a tag?, oh well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:51:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/midnighteverlark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter has arrived and Katniss and Peeta are beginning to discover intimacy. With a blizzard raging outside and fireplaces blazing inside, our two young lovers have ample opportunity to explore each other. As their relationship develops, secrets come out, the past is faced and, outside, the winter storm ensures their privacy.<br/>But there are sides to Peeta that Katniss never knew about...<br/>Post-MJ. Lemony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The knee-length shirt I sleep in poses no problem to Peeta's wandering fingers. They slither down my side, leaving goose bumps in their wake, until they reach the hem of the cotton tunic. My eyes open wide of their own accord, fixing themselves on the dim outline of the window across the room. Tonight, while the blizzard rages silver outside, it is closed. The wind blasts against the side of the house, hissing and howling like a mutt, and I know that any noise we make will not escape the confines of our bedroom. A conversation held out loud will not be overheard by Haymitch, as it might be in summertime. However, as Peeta draws lazy circles on the exposed skin of my lower thigh, it dawns on me that a heart-to-heart may not be what he has in mind.

I think back to the past months as a particularly violent surge of wind sends a loose shingle rattling. Peeta's hand stills and I close my eyes.

"Katniss?" he murmurs, thumb running over the prominent bones of my knee. "Are you awake?"

* * *

In the spring, we kissed for the first time since the Capitol. And in the half year since then, the kisses have changed. But very slowly. In the week that ladybugs swarmed over the meadow, Peeta shifted his hands from my waist to my hips. Some weeks after that, I took to pushing my fingers through his hair as our lips tugged at each other. By midsummer, his hands found their way to the strip of skin between my pants and shirt, gently massaging the muscles of my back, and soon after, he developed a habit of kissing my neck as we got ready for bed. A gasp here, a flick of the tongue there. Chestnuts ripened and fell from the trees, and it was there, in the forest, that Peeta's episode hit.

We were wandering between the trees, not twenty yards from the fence, baskets swinging from our elbows. The chestnuts, like furry, green fruits, lay on the ground along with crunching leaves. We wore protective gloves, leather ones left over from my father's days in the woods, as we stooped to gather the spiny pods. I had just peeled one open, revealing the nuts inside. Dark, round and shiny, they gleamed within their pithy hulls. I grinned up at Peeta, only to realize that Peeta was no longer there.

My head snapped around, sending the tendons in my neck throbbing. He had been by my side seconds ago.

"Peeta?"

I took a step one way, then the other, unable to choose a direction in my mounting panic. My voice rose to a breathy cry.

"Peeta?"

The basket of chestnuts fell to the ground, forgotten, and I slipped on the round, fruit-like husks as I stumbled forward. I scanned the leaves for a trail, a broken twig, anything to let me know where he went. Nothing.

By some cruel trick of fate, the steel-gray clouds above chose that moment to send forth a single, deep clap of thunder. In my frenzy, I didn't see the lightning flash, didn't hear the following growls of thunder. I registered the sound as a cannon.

I shrieked his name, abandoning logic in favor of sprinting in the direction from which we'd come. Memories washed over me like cold sprays of seawater, steadily wearing away at my control. _A cannon, then Peeta with hands full of nightlock. A cannon, and then bursts of bright color across the sky as a claw descends over me. A cannon and Peeta dead, Peeta mangled, throat ripped out by a mutt with my eyes…_

I slammed into something, maybe a tree trunk, and sprawled on the ground. My chest froze up and I struggled to breathe again. In the seconds that I lay there, staring up at the clouds, waiting for my lungs to expand again, a noise drew my attention to the left. I quickly disregarded it as the muscles of my chest relaxed and allowed me to suck in a spicy lungful of Autumn air, but as I panted, the noise came again. I turned my head slowly, still bleary from my impact with the tree, and it took a moment for my eyes to focus on the shape some yards away. As soon as they did, I was on all fours and lurching to my feet, then falling to my knees again as soon as I reached my destination.

"Peeta?"

His hands were clenched in his hair, his face half-hidden behind his arms. He rocked on the forest floor, heels digging into the soil, knees drawn up to his chest. I knew the reason without having to ask. Thanks to time and to Dr. Aurelius's counseling, his episodes were less frequent, but I had seen enough to recognize the signs. I forced myself to take three deep breaths, letting them out slowly, before I reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. He tensed, and his quick breaths changed tempo, but otherwise he didn't move. I shifted my hand to his back and began to rub in slow, gentle circles. This routine was familiar. When a shiny memory overwhelmed him and he held on to the nearest object to keep himself in the present, I would rub his back and murmur comfortingly until it passed. I almost prided myself on being able to bring him back from the brink so quickly, when it often took an hour or more for him to calm down by himself.

But this time it was different. I knew as soon as he raised his head from where it had been resting on his knees. His eyes glimmered from between his forearms, two dark pools ringed by a halo of hyacinth blue. My own breath was sucked from my throat as our eyes locked. In the fat pupils, which nearly eclipsed the blue, there was that glint of cruelty that hadn't shown itself since the Capitol. He held my gaze, lip curling in disgust as I watched Mutt-Peeta take control. My hand, still frozen on his back, began to tremble, and all I could think was, _This is it. We're out in the woods with a storm coming and no one is here to help me. He really will kill me, this time._

I felt a yank on my shirt and the base of my skull hit something with enough force to send black spots spreading over my vision. I blinked them away in time to realize that Peeta had shoved me against the nearest object, which happened to be the sturdy trunk of a maple. His arms flanked my head, hands braced on the bark on either side, and his body kept mine in place. But he didn't move. Pressed against the tree, disoriented from the two successive blows, I sought out his gaze once again. His eyes were closed tightly, brow furrowed, breath coming in harsh bursts. Hope sparked in my chest. He was fighting it off.

I waited, silent and still, terrified of doing anything that would make it worse. Rain began to fall, landing on us in small, icy drops and rolling down my skin until I shivered. It seemed like an hour or more went by, but I know it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. As the seconds ticked by, my eyes drifted to some point over his shoulder, fixing on empty space. My thoughts quieted, smothered under a haze of some emotion I couldn't name. I knew I needed to stop, to come back to myself, before it was too late, but I couldn't muster the will to do it. I half expected to feel the old kitchen rocking chair beneath me as my mind slipped towards the deep, empty track I'd walked so many times before. Before Peeta came back. Before he pulled me out of the shadows of my own mind. Before.

At last I felt his body relax, bit by bit, and then sway away from me. I slid down the trunk, no longer fixed in place by his weight, as my knees buckled. I hit the ground, curling into myself, and Peeta landed next to me heavily.

"I'm sorry," he choked. His hands landed on either side of my face, light as the touch of a moth's wing, their warmth easing the cool burn of my frozen skin. "I'm so sorry." He began to pepper my face with kisses, and as he did, I numbly raised one hand to rest over his. "God, I'm so sorry, Katniss," he wept, and cradled me to his chest.

Only then did I stir, dragging myself out of the haze of unresponsiveness that had been gathering since the rain began to fall. I forced myself to open and close my fists, then breathe in and out, then lift my head. Peeta's eyes found mine, blue once more. They were red from crying, and it was this detail that pushed me far enough from my mental rut to respond.

"No," I muttered, shaking my head laboriously. "'s not your fault."

"Did I hurt you?" He was turning me around, lifting my arms, checking my neck and wrists for injuries.

I shook my head again.

A breath pushed from between his lips and his forehead landed against my own. "I'm sorry," he said again.

As I drew further away from my vortex of numbness, my stubbornness returned full-force. "Would you stop apologizing?" I said crossly. "It's _their_ fault, not yours."

He flinched and his eyes darted down, then back up to my face. I could tell he was about to make another argument against himself, or apologize again, and that was no good at all, so I stopped his words with a kiss. He responded immediately, wrapping his arms around me as was our habit. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the episode, but Peeta's kiss was demanding. For the first time in my recollection, he pressed me down into the leaves of the forest floor and lifted himself to hover over me, supported by his knees and elbows. His arms and legs formed a sort of cage around me, making it impossible to roll to one side or the other. But I didn't want to. Peeta's tongue flickered against my bottom lip, then slipped past my teeth without permission, tracing the contours of my mouth. He withdrew briefly to nip at my lips, then plunged in again, pressing me further into the earth beneath his weight. Somehow, one of my arms found its way around his neck while the other curled over his back. He hummed appreciatively and pushed his tongue against mine.

This new, bold Peeta was and foreign and forceful and, at once, familiar. I could still feel the inherent sturdiness of the Peeta I knew in all his actions. I could feel the warmth and affection that had grown between us like a dandelion seed since the spring. But never before had he kissed me while lying on the ground. Never before had his tongue swirled against mine quite so daringly. Never, it occurred to me, except for once. On the beach.

Just as the thought entered my mind, Peeta's teeth closed over my lower lip, pinching it quickly before his tongue flicked over the newly sensitive area. Inexplicably, my legs squeezed together of their own accord as something at the apex of my thighs throbbed deliciously. A whimper escaped me, and Peeta, mistaking it for one of pain, drew back instantly. The alien sensation abated and I breathed deeply, bewildered.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I shouldn't have… I was too rough." His cheeks colored as he sat back on his heels and helped me up, his shyness in stark contrast to the bold boy that just kissed me.

We found our baskets of chestnuts and headed for home after that, quiet and with eyes turned to the gathering storm. I led the way, my steps a bit less confident than usual, still dazed from what occurred under the maple tree.

The next time Peeta kissed me, I waited hesitantly for the strange tug low in my belly. But it didn't come. Half disappointed and half relieved, I all but forgot about the incident, turning my attention to more important things. Autumn was going along at a nice clip, after all, and winter would be there sooner than later. There were meats to smoke, fruit to can, vegetables to freeze, blankets to find and bows to oil and store away in closets for their long inactivity over the blizzard months. Peeta, busy with his baking, made enough loaves and delicacies to hand out for free in the new town square, earning him the love of each and every child in Twelve.

Now, we're well into the winter and the biggest blizzard we've seen this year is snarling at every door and window. The curtains have been closed tight for days, to preserve heat, and Peeta has turned out at least half a dozen paintings in the last week. Tonight is no different from any other night in the past half month. We ate dinner, attempted to phone Haymitch and Doctor Aurelius again, only to find the phone lines out, and then got ready for bed. Peeta kissed my neck as we slid beneath the heaps of sheets and quilts. I snuggled against him, keeping warm, as the storm continued beyond the walls. The only thing different about tonight is Peeta's touch, lingering on my leg, raising goose bumps.

And now, he murmurs, "Katniss? Are you awake?"


	2. Chapter Two

I turn over, eyes wide to accommodate for the darkness of the room, and Peeta shifts so he's propped up on one elbow. "Hi." The softest of orange light, emanating from the dying fire in the fireplace, allows me to make out one half of his face.

"Hi."

It's cold, and even piled with blankets in a fire-warmed room, I want to turn over again and press my back against his broad chest. I can feel the heat of his skin from here, but I want to be closer. I shrug impatiently and he chuckles, picking up on my silent message, and scoots across the bed toward me. One of his arms wraps around my shoulders and I tuck my head into his neck.

"Better?" he asks gently, and I nod against him.

We're quiet for a length of time, just listening to the snow blow against the windowpanes. After a while, Peeta continues drawing little circles on the skin above my knee. Every few minutes, his fingers wander towards the hem of my nightshirt, hesitating just centimeters from the fabric, before returning to their circles. Every time this happens, he opens his mouth and takes a half-breath, as if to say something, then closes it again. At last I look up at him questioningly. In response, he lowers his lips to mine.

I tense, at first. This is the first time we've kissed while lying in bed. In the garden, yes, at the table, yes, but never in bed. Unbidden, my mind flashes to the rare bits of information I have about what goes on in the bed of a man and a woman. Some that I know from my mother, some from overheard whispers and giggles at school and in the Capitol. Even put all together, it isn't much. However mad I was, Peeta was right to call me pure.

 _Stop it,_ I tell myself sternly. _You're kissing. That's all. Just because you're in bed doesn't mean anything is going to happen._

I return the kiss, too late, and Peeta pulls back.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, quietly, and I think I see him flush in the dim light of the fire.

I say, "No."

He looks dubious, but allows me to lean in for another. It's shallow and chaste and I'm convinced that I was right. Just kissing. Nothing is going to happen.

"What are you thinking about?" Peeta says when he leans away.

This, too, relaxes me. It's another game we play, alongside 'real or not real'. Something else Doctor Aurelius suggested. It's supposed to build trust and communication, as well as help restore Peeta's memories. We've spent whole afternoons like this, just talking. The more we talk, the easier it gets. At first, I barely spoke a word to anyone, preferring to communicate with gestures and expressions. It was Peeta that coaxed me out of my shell and convinced me to speak again.

The game, though familiar, sends a flush of my own up my neck. I have to answer honestly, if I answer at all. That's one of the few rules. "Us," I say quickly, then add, "The summer. Autumn."

Peeta senses the half-truth and pursues, "What about us?"

I suck in my cheeks and twist my head, searching for something else to look at.

"What?"

When I won't answer, Peeta jostles me by scooting even closer and nudging me in the ribs.

"What is it? Hm?"

The hand not resting on my knee goes to my side, and before I realize what he's doing, Peeta's fingers and dancing up and down my ribs, spider-like. I make a noise halfway between an indignant shriek and a giggle, crawling away, but Peeta won't have it. He hooks an arm around my waist, anchoring me to him, and continues to tickle me.

"Hm?" he presses. "Is it a secret?"

"No," I gasp, succeeding in wriggling out of his grasp.

"Then what?" He's grinning now, and his smile warms me from across the bed. Then, abruptly, the smile fades. "Unless…" He ducks his head contritely. "Unless you didn't want to tell me," he says, then rushes on, "Which is fine. You don't have to… I mean, if you don't want to –"

"I was thinking about us," I interrupt, because I can't go on watching him think I'm rejecting him. "Kissing. Over the summer and autumn. _That's it_ ," I emphasize.

The smile, so abruptly gone, now comes sneaking back. "Oh?"

"Yeah," I say, suddenly defensive. "And?"

Peeta tucks a hand under my chin and turns my face toward him. "Were they… nice thoughts?"

If I wasn't red before, I'm sure I am now. "Yes," I admit.

He tips his head to one side, seeming to consider something. Then, stroking my cheek with a thumb, he cautiously asks, "You like kissing me. Real or not real?"

"Real," I say sadly, because I'm remembering the last time he asked me that. In a hospital room in the tunnels of Thirteen, him strapped to a cot and me half insane already.

"But you didn't before," he clarifies, almost to himself. "Before the Capitol, it was for the cameras."

The happy light in his eyes has dimmed, and seeing it sends splinters of pain through me. I slip my arms around him and hold him tight, and that helps. "Only sometimes," I whisper. "Sometimes it was for the cameras. Sometimes it was because I wanted to."

He nods, his gaze far off, and is silent for several seconds. Then he looks back at me. "But not now. Now it's… only when you want?"

"Real," I affirm.

"Because there aren't any cameras."

"Real."

He nods again, chewing the corner of his lip, and then uses the light grip he already has on my chin to lift my face to his. Our lips meet again, and I'm startled by the intensity of the kiss. I expected something soft and fleeting, like our last kisses. Instead, it's hot and needy. I'm reminded of that time in the forest, under the maple tree, though the circumstances couldn't be more different.

I'm aware of Peeta rolling onto his stomach, so our torsos overlap, and then one of his hands slides into my hair, picking out the hair tie. My braid falls apart, letting my hair fall loose around my shoulders, and a sigh passes from his lungs into mine. I know Peeta likes to play with my hair when it's down. He's constantly taking it out of its braid, and I'm constantly griping at him for it. But not this time. This time, as he carefully combs through the thick, dark locks, I give a small sigh of my own. His fingers tug gently at the strands, sending a tingling sensation across my scalp. I must make some noise of contentment, because I feel his lips curve up in a smile.

He pulls away, and I'm almost disappointed. The kiss was so much like the one in the woods, I was sure I would feel that thing again. The fluttery, insistent throb between my legs. I'm instantly filled with shame at the thought, and I have to resist the urge to cover my face as if Peeta can see it in my eyes. I should not be chasing this… this… whatever it was. I should not even be thinking about it.

Before I can retreat into a ball of guilt, Peeta speaks. "Katniss?"

"Hmm?" I chance a glance into his eyes and nearly jump out of my skin. They're dark. I'm about to bolt from the bed when I realize that his pupils haven't eclipsed the blue. In the dim firelight, his irises themselves have deepened to a midnight blue, glinting with the dancing flames. He's not having an episode. But if not that, then what?

He studies my face, no doubt puzzled at my reaction. His thumb traces the curve of my cheek and I turn my face into his touch, wordlessly reassuring him.

His words are hesitant. "You trust me. Real or not real."

It only takes a moment of indecision before I answer. "Real."

"Then…" He seems nervous, but I can't imagine why. His tongue pokes out of his mouth to run across the seam of his lips. "Let me try something?"

I nod uncertainly. My mind casts about for what he could be talking about. He's never asked permission while kissing me before. Not with words, at least. A glance, a nod, is all we need to communicate in the times when Peeta wants to hold on to my hips or unwind my braid. What could he need to ask permission for?

His right hand finds my lower thigh again, and again he drags his fingers up, pushing the hem of my nightshirt up an inch. He glances at me from underneath his eyelashes, a corner of his lower lip clamped between his teeth. Gently, he gathers the material between his fingers and gives a small tug.

Only now do I start to understand what he's asking.

My whole body is wrapped in a patchwork of scars. Thanks to Capitol technology, they don't stop me from performing day-to-day activities. I can climb trees and shoot a bow and hike to the lake and back without tearing my mismatched skin. My body is functional. But it's ugly. Some areas on my legs and sides escaped the flames, but beyond that, my skin is a mishmash of shiny, warped scar tissue and unnaturally smooth skin implants that only recently became a permanent part of my body. I am not something anyone would want to look at. Even Peeta and his golden heart.

My eyes widen and I quickly shake my head.

His face falls. "Katniss," he begins dejectedly, then shakes his head and sighs. He shifts to the side, so that he's no longer hovering over me, his face turned away from the firelight. I can't see his expression when he says, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"It's not you," I mutter, shame welling up in me again, this time for a different reason entirely. "It's just…"

He waits patiently for me to finish the thought. I can't seem to get the words out.

"I'm not… It's just… I'm ugly." No matter how much I stutter trying to get them past my lips, the words are matter-of-fact, not self-pitying. I know what I look like, and I can't change it. It hasn't made much of a difference, up until now. But Peeta looks as if I've just announced I've never seen sunlight.

"How could you say that?" he asks. His voice is quiet, but it trembles with something I can't name.

"I am," I say. "I have scars." My gaze slides to the side, avoiding his own.

His expression, or what I can see of it in the firelight, goes through a ballet of changes. Within a few seconds, his jaw sets. He sits up suddenly and crosses his arms over his torso in an X to grip the opposite sides of his shirt at the hem. I'm about to ask what he's doing when he pulls it off in one smooth motion, ducking his head just before it pops off over his hair. I'm taken aback. Except for very hot nights in the middle of summer, Peeta always wears a pajama shirt to sleep.

"Look." His eyes, still strangely dark in the flickering firelight, gleam at me across the space between us. Too startled to fully register what he said, I stare back. _"Look,"_ he urges again, and takes one of my hands between his own. He guides it to his bare shoulder, where my fingers light on a knot of skin, waxy and raised from the rest. A burn scar. I've seen it before, poking out from the collar of his shirts, so I know what it looks like. But feeling it is new. Hesitantly, I trace the shape with the tips of my fingers, afraid of hurting him if I press too hard.

"And here," he says quietly, guiding my hand further down his chest to a place where two pieces of skin meet. I can tell this is what it is because the long, thin line of raised tissue is almost identical to the ones that spider-web all over my own back. "And here." His voice shakes as he places my hand on his side, where three ridges twist over his ribs and up his back. These aren't the melted skin of a fire scar. These are from a blade. And I don't need to ask who inflicted them.

Peeta releases my wrist, allowing me to slide my hand lightly over his chest. My fingers catch on patches of hardened tissue and bump over nicks. Underneath all that, he is warm and solid and familiar. I have slept curled-up on his chest since the Victory Tour. I know it. I know _him_. But something about the way his stomach rises and falls with his breaths, the way his skin burns under my touch, sends a shiver through me.

"Don't you see?"

His palm finds the apple-sized scar on my forearm, where Johanna dug the tracker out.

"We're the same."

I meet his eyes, then, and their intensity fixes me in place. My hand still rests in the center of his chest when he takes the hem of my nightshirt between his fingers once again.

"May I?" he asks, and this time, I take a gulp of air and give a jerky nod.

As soon as the piece of fabric slithers over my shoulders and falls in a crumpled heap beside me, I cross my arms over my chest self-consciously. The blankets have slipped down past both of our waists, and the cool air washes over my torso like waves of lake water. My nipples tighten in the cold and a contradicting prickle of heat surges into my cheeks. I can't look Peeta in the eyes. I can't do anything. Why couldn't I just say no and go to sleep?

A touch under my chin brings my face up, and at last I fleetingly meet his gaze. "You don't have to cover yourself, Katniss," Peeta whispers. "You're beautiful."

"I'm not," I reply, but, trembling, I lower my arms.

As soon as my breasts are exposed, Peeta's breath hitches. I look down at myself, lips pressed together. My chest is one of the few places virtually untouched by flames. The skin there is its natural olive shade, soft and far smoother than the calloused skin of my hands. Having grown up in the Seam, I never received much extra sustenance, and certainly not enough for my body to spend on breasts or hips, so my frame is straight and narrow. But in the past year, my eating habits have finally begun to level out. The constant supply of food from Peeta and from the woods has strengthened my body. You can no longer see my ribs, and my belly is no longer sunken in. However, despite all the loaves of bread and good venison, my breasts are scarcely larger than they were when I was fourteen. The size of small apples, I know they can't measure up to the merchant girls that live in Twelve. I've never given it much thought before now.

Chewing on my lip, I finally muster the courage to look back up at Peeta.

"Is this –" He clears his throat and seems to forcibly drag his gaze away from my chest to meet my eyes. "Is this too much?"

"I don't know," I answer. I'm shaking and cold and uncertain. By all accounts, the answer should be, 'yes'. But, as Peeta carefully takes me by the waist and pulls me closer, I can't make myself say the word.

Without taking his hands from my waist, Peeta kisses me. I focus on just moving my lips against his, trying to push down the nerves that have settled in my stomach. After a while, it becomes easier. _This is okay,_ I tell myself. _Just kissing. Just kissing… without shirts on. But kissing. You know this._

As I relax into the kiss, Peeta lifts me onto his lap with precise care, touching only my hips and waist. His hands slide an inch up my sides, then back down in a calming gesture he's used many times before. He leans back, and I open my eyes to find him already staring into them, studying them for my reaction. Our deep, even breaths mix between us, and I give a little nod. A smile twitches at the corners of his mouth as he closes in again.

For the second time tonight, the kiss starts out sweet and quickly builds until lips part and tongues flick. Peeta twines one hand in my hair, massaging my scalp, while the other squeezes my hip. A tingle shoots through me when his teeth momentarily scrape my bottom lip, biting at it playfully before retreating. My hands link behind his back and I lean into him, only to jerk back with a small cry as my bare breasts brush against his chest. The sensation is warm and ticklish, and it ignites that thing I felt on the beach, and then in the forest – the thing I've been subconsciously chasing ever since.

"Katniss," Peeta pants, and I see his eyes drift to my chest again. I have to fight the urge to wrap the blanket tightly around myself. "God… You're beautiful."

For the first time, I don't contradict him. He gazes at my tiny breasts as if I'm some exotic and alluring creature from the deepest part of the wildwood. As if I'm worthy of being looked at.

"Can I…?"

I don't know what he's asking, but I nod. Whatever he wants, I'm not likely to deny him. Not with this elusive fluttering feeling moving through me.

He disentangles his hand from my hair, and the next thing I know, both his palms are cupping my breasts. Without quite meaning to, I arch my back, pressing them into his hands. The warmth of his skin against my chilled flesh sends goose bumps rising all across my body. Experimentally, he flexes his hands, and I suck in a harsh breath. I should be embarrassed, I should be pulling away, but his ministrations are sending little ripples of heat and… something else I can't name through me. His thumb catches on one puckered peak and I whimper. Peeta's eyes flick to my face. Deliberately, he does it again. The calluses on his thumb rub pleasingly across the sensitive skin and a small noise, half-sigh, half-moan drips from my mouth.

"That?" he asks in a low voice, repeating the action on the other breast. "You like that?"

I blush all the way down my neck and force myself to nod, swallowing as many lungfuls of air as I can.

That's when Peeta lowers his lips to one breast.

His hot mouth surrounds the rosy tip and my head snaps back, mouth parted in a silent cry. His tongue swirls around my nipple, laving it thoroughly, and I thread my fingers through his hair, tugging softly as a strange, sweet ache blossoms in my breasts and between my thighs. I reflexively squeeze my legs together, only to find them still resting on either side of Peeta's lap. When my thighs clamp down around his hips, a groan resonates in his chest. And then he begins to suck.

A moan falls freely from my lips. Why was I so worried earlier? This feels _good_ , so good I no longer care that it shouldn't be happening. With every pull of his mouth, a spike of pleasure shoots from the source to the fluttering place low in my belly. My thighs continue to squeeze, rhythmically, desperate to fill the hollow place between them.

Peeta's mouth leaves my breast, and I protest weakly, only to let my words dissolve into a sigh when it lands on the other. His hand comes up to attend to the one his lips just abandoned, rolling the sensitized nipple between his fingers. The sweet ache only intensifies, leaving me squirming in his lap, my low whine curling into the air.

With a grunt, he releases my breast, exposing it once again to the cold air. "You're so perfect," he mouths, lips moving against the swell of my breast.

What from the chill and from Peeta's mouth, my nipples are painfully tight, like two blushing rose buds atop dusky mounds. He lets out a puffing breath that ghosts across the right one, sending a pang through both. Vaguely, I wonder how something so much like pain can feel so good.

I'm still perched in his lap, making my chest level with his face. He blinks with heavy eyelids, his eyes feasting on my naked torso, but for a reason unfathomable to me I don't care. My mind is pleasantly foggy, as if I've swallowed a teaspoon of sleep syrup. As Peeta bobs his head over one breast, flattening his tongue over the wanting flesh, my hands fist in his curls, automatically tightening and releasing with each of his movements. My eyes close and all I can think is, _Yes,_ and _this_ and _him._

And then he stops, leaning away with one last tender suckle. He places a kiss on my lips, which I clumsily return, and allows me to wind my arms around his neck.

As I struggle to catch my breath, forehead resting on the golden curls on top of his head, he lifts a hand to stroke my hair.

His question is quiet, mumbled against my collar bone. "Was that okay?"

"Yes," I exhale. As my heartbeat slows, so does the throbbing between my thighs. I become aware of a warm wetness that has pooled there. Almost bashfully, I move off his lap, sitting beside him with my legs firmly clamped together. An expression that might be disappointment flashes across Peeta's face, but he quickly recovers.

"Are you sure?" He plays with a strand of my hair, pushing it away from my face. "We aren't going too fast? Because if we are… just say the word."

I fidget and shrug. Now that my body is floating down from the place it ascended to, guilt is creeping in, prodding at me. I never dreamed he would put his mouth _there_ … or that I'd like it so much. Did I like it _too_ much? Is something wrong with me? Am I like those merchant girls that constantly vanished behind the slag heap?

"You're thinking too much," Peeta announces gently. He fishes for my nightshirt, retrieving it from the edge of the bed, and offers it to me. Gratefully, I pull it on, flushing deeper than I thought possible. He kisses my temple, and the innocent gesture is somehow just as intimate as our activities just minutes ago. "We'll take it slow," he promises. He rearranges the quilts over us, straightening them and drawing them up to our chins.

I snuggle against him readily, and his chest rises and falls in a sigh of – what, relief? Did he think I would distance myself from him because of what just happened? Should I?

 _No,_ I decide, as Peeta drapes an arm over my waist. Drawing away now would just mean stress and pain for both of us. We've spent too many days together to suddenly fall apart. Especially now, during this winter storm, when both of us are essentially trapped in the house with one another.

I shiver works its way from my tailbone to the base of my skull as I remember his gentle hands, the tug of his lips on –

I clench my teeth and promise myself I won't think about it. Beside me, Peeta sighs again, and his lips brush the skin behind my ear. Before long, his breathing settles into a pattern I know by heart, and I know he's asleep. I'm about to follow him when something occurs to me. _"We'll take it slow,"_ he said. Does that mean there's more to come?


	3. Chapter Three

The mug clatters to the table and I sputter, quickly pressing the cool blade of a butter knife to my throbbing lower lip. The traitorous tea steams calmly, a starburst ring of liquid darkening the wood beneath the mug. I glare at it and a soft laugh at my shoulder makes me turn.

"Careful," Peeta says needlessly, amusement bubbling in his voice. "It's still hot."

"I figured that out, oddly enough," I say, lowering the knife. The tip of my tongue probes the tender flesh of my lip and I wince.

Large hands turn my face and Peeta dips his head, meeting me halfway to brush his chapped lips against my burnt ones. His mouth is cool from the water he's been drinking. He drags his lower lip across my own, soothing the heat with an almost-kiss. I sigh and twist my body to face him fully, but he withdraws, eyes bright.

"Better?" he teases.

He takes another sip of his water and ducks around the corner, a smirk twisting up one side of his mouth. I stand at the table, looking after him, unable to decide if his cockiness annoys or enthralls me. After a moment, I turn and take the mug in my hands again, blowing on the surface of the liquid. I wait a good while before taking a sip, and even then, I'm not paying much attention to the temperature of the tea. My mind replays the way his eyes followed the path of my tongue, the feel of his ice-cooled mouth on mine, the smell of him. Cinnamon and honey, yeast and soap flakes and _Peeta._ That same scent overwhelmed me just yesterday, in the dark of night, when he lifted me onto his lap, coaxed off my nightshirt with gentle words and gentler hands, put his mouth –

As soon as I realize what I'm doing, I shake my head forcefully and make myself think of something else.

It's Sunday, and old habits die hard. I rose before dawn, along with Peeta, and had already opened the closet door for my bow before I remembered that going out wouldn't be an option. Overnight, the storm screamed and the ground swelled with white mounds, shaped by wind, while the windows blurred with feathers of frost. Even if the doors weren't frozen shut, it would be a suicide mission to set foot on the porch, let alone in the woods. For now, I am trapped indoors. I envy Peeta, who can practice his preferred skills come rain or shine. The ovens blaze with light and heat, producing all manner of spongy, fragrant breads and confections, and I'm sure he'll paint something before the day is done.

The sun has just shown itself, peering over the horizon like one dim, white eye, obscured by the clouds and snow. It hardly makes a difference – all our curtains are drawn, some even reinforced with extra sheets or blankets draped over the curtain rods to insulate the rooms. For the first time in memory, I am glad for the elaborate Victors' Village house, with its stone fireplaces everywhere you turn and solid oak in the walls.

Of course, it looks much different now than it did even a year ago. All the Capitol photographs of bleak landscapes and government buildings were ripped from the walls long ago, replaced with Peeta's paintings of peaceful things. The forest. My primrose bushes. The sunset over a newly-built merchant square. Even one of Prim, brightening the hall with her infectious smile, holding a disgruntled Buttercup in her arms. Pelts of animals I've shot and skinned lie spread over furniture, concealing the cold leather with a layer of plush fur. The television is gone, locked away in the attic, and in its place stands a trunk of Peeta's family's things. I saw him go through it once, stroking each object before carefully setting it aside. One of his father's aprons. Notes from his brothers. A vase his mother favored. They're the things that migrated from the bakery to his Victors' Village house before the fire bombs. Nothing of the old bakery is left but a twisted scrap of metal that used to be an oven door. That's in the trunk, too.

The sound of the study doors opening startles me from my thoughts. I glance at the clock, mildly surprised to find that several minutes have gone by, but grateful that it wasn't any longer. I used to lose chunks of time by the hour. Still do, sometimes. It's a little better, now, but I can't trust myself to slip into my thoughts unless I want to look up and find that a day has gone by and I've neither moved nor ate. I was lucky this time. The tea is still warm in the mug. I haven't lost more than a quarter hour.

I step towards the source of the noise, fingers tightening around my cup. Since the day Snow invaded my home, a viper behind the study desk, I've all but shunned the room, always skirting the tightly closed double doors at a half-run when I pass. If there was a lock, I would have locked it tight and flung the key into the deepest part of the lake. A shudder clamps down on the base of my spine at the image of Snow, white blossom tucked in his lapel, blood dribbling down his chin, laughing as Coin's body slumped over the railing.

_"Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had an agreement not to lie to each other."_

I realize I have shrunk against the wall, pressing myself into a corner. The mug is on the floor somewhere behind me, contents seeping into the carpet.

"Katniss?"

I jump violently and whip around, only to meet Peeta's concerned gaze.

"Katniss, what is it?"

His voice is oddly muffled, and only when he comes to me and gently tugs down on my wrists do I realize my hands are jammed against my ears. Someone's breathing in small, harsh gasps, and I think it might be me. Over Peeta's shoulder, the study door gapes open, a cold, dim rectangle. The overwhelming urge to run crushes me and I lurch backwards. Something hard under my heel, and then I'm on the ground, skittering away on my palms. Pain, made unimportant by the adrenaline, lances up my left calf.

 _Get away, get away, have to get away,_ a voice chants in my head. It's Prim, it's Rue, it's Cinna and Boggs. Snow is in that cold room. I can't see him, but I can feel him, a presence lurking just behind the door. I choke on the tang of blood, like a jar of copper coins, and the smell of roses makes my head swim. _Get away, run, run get away get away!_

My shoulders hit something unyielding. Fingernails scrabble on wallpaper. A wall. Can't get away. Can't run. Can't run. Screaming and blood and roses and Snow and can't run, can't run, can't run…

A pair of arms under my shoulders and knees. Lifting, swaying. Cinnamon and honey. Gulping breaths. Cinnamon. Not blood. Not roses. A hand caressing my hair, not tearing at my skin. Voices murmuring, not screaming. No, not voices. Just one. One voice. Peeta. Whispering against my temple.

Gradually, my heartbeat slows and I am able to process my surroundings. I'm cradled to Peeta's chest. He's rocking me back and forth like a frightened child, murmuring reassurances into my hair, smoothing one hand along my skin. I realize that his fingers are trembling. His other hand is pressing against my left heel, and as soon as I notice this I register a flash of pain there. My eyes open and immediately I notice the streaks of scarlet slowly soaking between his fingers. My head turns shakily and my eyes seek out the spots of crimson on the patterned carpet, forming an uneven trail from the hallway through the living room door.

Finally, I turn back towards Peeta, eyes widening in a question. As soon as our eyes meet, he curls up into himself, bringing me even closer. His knees rise and his free hand goes to hook underneath them, pressing me into a nest of warm skin and folds of sweater and shaggy golden curls.

"God, Katniss," he exhales. "Are you okay?"

"You tell me," I whisper. I can barely remember what led up to this moment. The pain in my heel is distracting, but not as distracting as the fact that I can't remember why it hurts. "What happened?"

"I went into the study to look for ink. I thought there might be some in the desk. When I came out, it looked like you were having a panic attack. I asked what was wrong, but you wouldn't answer me, and –" His voice cracks and he pauses, pressing his face into my neck, before continuing. "And you kind of stumbled backward. You stepped on the mug and broke it, and a shard went into your foot. You backed yourself into a corner and curled up into a ball and started screaming… I… I didn't know what to do, I…" I can feel his shiver all around me. "I was so scared, Katniss."

"'m sorry," I mutter, sorting through the information he gave me. The study. He went into the study. I saw the door open, and then –

"Snow!" I gasp, jerking upright and consequentially knocking my skull into his chin.

"What?" He rubs his chin. "What about Snow?" He sees the reappearing panic in my eyes and shakes his head, tucking me gently back against him. "Snow is dead, Katniss. He can't hurt us anymore."

"But the study," I sob, shaking all over again. "H-he was in the study, he was _there,_ he…"

"No, he wasn't, Katniss," he says patiently. "I was just in there. We're the only ones here. It's all right. You're safe."

I look up into his eyes, tears wet on my cheeks. His gaze holds so much pain that an answering ache throbs in my chest. I can't stop myself from whimpering, "Are you sure?"

Peeta looks at me for a long minute, contemplating something, before he braces himself on the arm of the couch and hefts himself to his feet with me still draped across his arms. He deposits me back on the couch and rubs a palm over my shoulder. "I'm sure," he says, then turns and walks into the hall. There's some rustling, and then the whoosh and clunk of the double doors closing. He reappears in the doorway.

"Just us," he confirms.

I nod and reach for him, and he obliges, striding across the room to lower himself next to me.

"Just us," he says again as I nuzzle into him, and this time I believe it. With the study doors closed, _that day_ is once again shut away in the past, and Snow with it. My muscles begin to relax, my body easing away from fight-or-flight. As always after a panic attack, my head pounds.

Peeta shifts my legs over his lap, and I look at him curiously.

"We need to get something for your foot," he says in answer, lifting me and starting towards the kitchen.

"I can walk."

"I know." His grip tightens. "Humor me."

He carries me to the kitchen table, where he sets me in the nearest chair and props my foot up on another. He brings down a box of medical supplies from its place in the cupboard while I twist my leg to examine the wound. It's wide, but shallow, and already the bleeding is beginning to slow. It won't need stitches, but I'll be limping for a while. I cross my left leg over my right, propping the heel on the opposite knee, and begin to clean the cut while Peeta goes to retrieve the shattered mug. By the time he's thrown away the fragments of china and sponged up the spilled tea, I've already finished wrapping my heel.

He lifts the box back into the cupboard, then comes to kneel in front of me, holding one of my palms to his cheek. "I'm sorry," he mouths, and his breath heats my cold fingers.

"For what?"

"I should have known about the study. It's my fault that happened. It's my fault you got hurt."

My brows sink in my usual scowl. "No. How could you have known? I panicked, you calmed me down, end of story."

A sigh expands his chest so that it momentarily pushes against his sweater, filling it with the firm landscape I've become so familiar with. "I'll make you breakfast," he offers.

I look to the window, and yes, it's still morning, gray through the cracks between the curtains. Strange how time moves so quickly some times and so slowly others.

"Anything you want," he goes on. "You can eat it in bed and rest your heel. I'll bring up the book, if you want."

I know it would be pointless to refuse. All that would accomplish would be an extra few minutes of arguing, ending in me finally giving in anyway. It's easier, better, to just let him be kind. So, half an hour later, I am once again under the covers in our bedroom, a tray of bacon, cheese buns, scrambled eggs and hot chocolate on my lap. Peeta sits cross-legged on the other side of the bed, diligently working on a new sketch for our book. It's one of the tributes I never knew, the one that the Careers sent Peeta back to 'finish off'. Little did they know, he actually held her until she died, then closed her eyes before returning to them.

I've drained my cup and all but emptied my plate, leaving only a few pinches of bacon for Buttercup, who has been parading up and down the bed since I got here, yowling for attention. He snaps up the offered meat from my palm, licks the remnants of grease from my fingers, then goes to curl up in one of his hiding spots. His orange plumbed tail flicks around the doorframe as I set the tray on the side table.

Peeta looks up.

"Done?" he asks, putting aside his drawing.

I nod absently, wiping cat spit off on the duvet. I'm still thinking about earlier.

"Good."

I'm startled to find him crawling over the blankets, setting the mattress dipping and swaying on the bed frame, but I don't push him away when he curls an arm around my back and pulls me to him. He rests his forehead at the crown of my head, nudging me a few times before he gets comfortable, and gives a contented sigh.

"Why do you do that?" I ask.

He lifts his head slightly to speak, and I can feel his breath, warm and damp, raising goose bumps, against the skin behind my ear. "Do what?"

"You know," I say, shifting my hips so I face him more fully. "That. Rest your head on mine."

"I like to smell your hair," he replies simply. "It smells like pine and wood smoke and lavender. Like you."

It's in these moments, when he speaks with absolute sincerity and his eyes grow big and sweet in the innocent remarks, that I can most see the Peeta from before the Quell. Before everything, really. Like he was in the cave, when rain streaked just outside and we were snug and safe in our little cocoon of stew and sleeping bags and kisses. Of course, we weren't really safe – far from it – but given a choice between reliving any of the events in the past two years and reliving the cave, I'd choose the cave. There, it was only me and Peeta. No one else to watch out for, no one to pacify with frantic attempts at making peace, no charred remains to haunt us. At the time, we were miserable, but now it seems like paradise.

Maybe it's this that compels me to whisper back, "You smell like cinnamon. And honey, and soap flakes."

I can't decipher the expression on his face, so I hurry on, babbling in my insecurity.

"It was what brought me back, after the attack, I mean, because I knew it was _you_ and not a hallucination, and I've probably made you uncomfortable now and – "

Peeta swallows my words in a kiss. It seems as if he's learned something from me, after all.

"Katniss," he says, and it's a prayer, a plea, against my lips.

All at once, those eyes that were so innocent just a moment ago are deep sapphire and intense with hunger. My heart stutters as they stare into mine, seeking something… and finding it.

Our mouths mesh again, and it's like the cave, like the beach, like the forest. I wonder, as his hands slide into my hair, if it will always be like this: comparing kisses to the ones I know to be real, because of all the false ones on the Victory Tour. I wonder, suddenly, if that's what Peeta does – except for everything.

"Real or not real," I gasp, though I know the answer.

Peeta's reply is a growl at the corner of my lips. "Real."

Then he goes for my throat. Lips diving to my pulse point, pinching it between his teeth, releasing it with an open-mouthed kiss. A shudder of _something_ drips from his mouth through the rest of my body – something akin to what I felt last night. My thoughts betray me, instantly hoping for the same set of events to repeat themselves. I tell myself no, that it's too soon, that Peeta might not even want to look at me again, let alone touch me. But my traitor body thrums in anticipation. What with Peeta's kisses, moving slowly towards the junction of my neck and shoulder, and with the memories of his mouth on my breasts, it takes no time at all for the fluttering to return. It settles itself at the apex of my thighs with a vengeance, pulsing with my heartbeat. I feel _empty_ , hollow, and yet as if I am swelling with heat and want.

My cheeks warm and I glance down to see if Peeta has noticed my expressions. He has done little more than kiss me, and already my body is begging for more. Surely, that cannot be what is supposed to happen.

He _has_ noticed. Deep, hooded eyes flick up to my face, crinkled at the corners with a laugh that vibrates against my body like thunder. "Oh, Katniss," he exhales, a smile curving his lips against the hollow of my throat.

"Don't laugh at me," I say quietly, unable to muster up enough volume to sound indignant.

"Never." His hand lights on my hip, keeping me in place, as his lips scale my throat. They brush over my jaw before returning to my mouth, and I move to sit up more fully, slanting my lips over his. I move to link my hands behind his neck, only to find them already entangled in his shirt.

I take in a sharp breath, letting my jaw fall open, at the feel of Peeta's tongue tracing the roof of my mouth, flicking over my teeth before retreating to sweep over my lower lip. He's growing bolder, and every action feeds the little fire within me, slowly but surely stoking it to a blaze low in my belly. My muscles twitch and my legs rub together, setting the space between my thighs throbbing. I make a noise, something between a gasp and a whimper, and an answering hum rises from Peeta's chest.

With a shuddering breath, he rises, pulling himself away from me and drawing a soft sound of disappointment from my lips.

"Katniss," he says again. He wets his lips. "May I…?"

I'm thrown back to another time, another question, not a day ago. It is not so different now. The curtains are drawn to keep out the cold and the fireplace crackles reassuringly across from the bed. And, just like last time, I am not likely to deny him.

In place of an answer, I twist my arms and wriggle out of the high-necked sweater that encases my torso, taking the thin undershirt with it. The two stick together and crumple in a heap beside me. All that's left is a simply-cut bra – one of cotton and ribbon from my mother's days as an apothecary's daughter, folded and stitched strategically to fit me. It was something she took it upon herself to do, before the Quell announcement, when I outright refused to buy any from the market. Before the Games, I had always worn lengths of cloth, bound like a bandage around my chest and tied at my spine, or nothing at all. It hadn't really been a priority. But after we returned home, my mother became convinced that I needed something more suitable than rags to wear under my shirt. Perhaps she predicted that a day like this would come, when someone besides myself would look upon the undergarments.

Though Peeta has already seen me half-naked, and though I still have the flimsy piece of fabric to cover me, my head still swivels to the side, avoiding Peeta's gaze. My heart is doing nervous little jumps in my chest, pumping a fresh wave of blood into my cheeks. He must see my lingering discomfort, because he makes no move except to place little kisses at my temple, nuzzling my hair and murmuring nonsensical words until I'm able to turn my head and meet him for a kiss. We venture from our usual habits by leaving our eyes open, searching each others' gaze while our lips push and pull, tug and retreat like the tide. He does nothing to hide the longing in his eyes, and, without quite meaning to, I drink it in, absorbing it into my skin like sunlight, like life itself. After all those months of him hating me, hurting me, snapping and snarling at me like a feral dog, it's like a dose of morphling, that loving gaze.

No. Not morphling. Morphling puts you to sleep. Peeta's look of want, though dulling my thoughts, somehow simultaneously wakes me up. I feel alive. And this too, after months of numbness, is a change more welcome than any drug.

Peeta's arms move from my hips, sliding up my sides and around my back, his fingers meeting at the strip of fabric that runs just below my shoulder blades. He traces small circles on the skin there, and at the light touch my eyes flutter closed. A tiny nod, a nudge against his chin, is all he needs to go to work on the clasp. He fumbles, obviously unsure how to release the garment from my body, and I'm about to reach around and help him when he manages to undo it. A triumphant grin stretches his lips, pulling them away from mine, and I open my eyes again to catch the boyish sparkle in his gaze as he tosses it off the side of the bed.

He hesitates only a moment this time, giving me a questioning glance, before his hands go to my breasts. My head lolls to the side and two sighs lift my ribs, one after the other, as the fire in my belly leaps up into my chest. It's been – what, twelve hours? If that – and already it feels like a decade. Peeta navigates the gentle swells of my small breasts with more certainty this time, cupping them with gentle, calloused palms before flicking his thumbs over the puckered peaks. That sweet ache begins to bloom in each, insistent and demanding, leaving me shivering in anticipation.

"Peeta," I pant. "I…" I can't make myself say it. Even with the effects of his hands, my inhibitions have not lowered enough to allow me to ask for what I want. In the end, all I can do is stutter, "P-please."

He understands. And maybe he wants this as badly as I do, because he lets out a shuddering breath as he descends, and as soon as his lips lock around one nipple, a deep "Mmm," resonates around the sensitive flesh.

Peeta takes his time, starting out slow and sweet. He attends to my left breast with one hand, squeezing rhythmically, while his other hand anchors itself firmly to my back, keeping me arched against his mouth. In no great hurry, he learns my secrets, discovering what makes me squirm or sigh. I learn with him. I learn that the little sounds of enthusiasm he makes around the tip of my breast send tingling ripples through me, scalp to toes. I learn that when he pinches a nipple between his teeth – gently, so gently – makes me whine and arch. I learn that if I squeeze my thighs together, it only makes the throbbing worse, but swinging my hips from side to side relieves it, if only for a moment.

Gradually, Peeta's movements increase in intensity. Nipping, sucking, squeezing his way towards something I do not know. He devours me, feeding on my mewls of delight and contentment, and when my swaying hips bump against his own, he rolls with a groan and settles his weight over me. I'm pressed down into the mattress, my hands tangled in his hair, my head rolling from side to side on the sheets. The fire in me has burned down to embers, somehow hotter than the flames, and they smolder in all the most forbidden places of my body.

I'm startled out of my dreamy haze at the unexpected jab of something hard against my thigh. I shift, puzzled, and Peeta releases me from his mouth to let out a small, "Ah."

Then I think I understand. I must flush all the way down to my toes, but along with embarrassment, there's an edge of that same sweet fire, goading me on. Before my mind can sort through the situation, my body reflexively lifts itself, pressing the sturdy fabric of my winter trousers into Peeta's legs and hips. He slumps forward, his face landing just below my collarbone, with a strangled sound.

"Katniss," he whispers, hisses, almost.

It occurs to me that this whole time Peeta's been making me feel good, and I've done nothing to repay him. Just like always, I've been selfish, taking without even thinking to give, while Peeta and his golden heart has done nothing _but_ give.

"Do you want me to…?" I blurt, trailing off because I honestly don't know how that sentence would end.

His head swings back and forth, and he moves both hands to cup my face, brushing his thumbs across the angles of my cheekbones. "No," he murmurs, resting his forehead on mine. "You don't need to, Katniss."

"But," I begin, and he cuts me off.

"Let me do this for you. I _want_ to do this for you." His voice and eyes beg, though the poke against my thigh doesn't yield. I'm about to protest when one hand lifts from my face, and a moment later a pinch at one sensitized nipple makes me jerk.

"Please." Another, gentler pinch, and then his hand is moving again, his forefinger dipping into the small hollow of my belly button before coming to rest at the band of my woolen trousers.

I look at him, nerves battling with eagerness, my teeth working at a corner of my lower lip. He catches sight of the action and groans, dipping his head to nip at the swollen lip for himself. When he lifts his head again, the tips of his fingers have slipped under the band of my trousers and are sliding back and forth along the skin of my hips, not pulling, not plunging deeper, just teasing. Testing.

"Peeta," I say quickly, and he withdraws. "I… I don't know. I've never…"

He waits, and when it becomes apparent I'm not going to finish my sentence, he speaks softly. "I won't do anything you don't want me to do," he says. "If you ever want me to stop, say the word and I'll stop."

This is true. I know without asking for confirmation, and I would have known had he said nothing at all, that Peeta would never force himself on me. But this is new territory, and momentarily overpowering the sensations running through me is a sharp twinge of fear. What if I disappoint him, somehow? What if I'm too damaged? What if I'm misinterpreting this whole thing, and I end up pushing him away again?

Then I look into his eyes, and I see that longing again – that unwavering love that scared me for so long, because I thought myself incapable of returning it. _"Let me do this for you,"_ his voice says in my head. _"I want to do this for you."_

 _This is Peeta,_ I tell myself. _I trust him. It's just a stupid pair of pants, that's all._

"All right."

Peeta's eyes, which dimmed slightly in my long silence, light up like twin lanterns, shining down on me as if I've just handed him the sun itself. Hesitantly, he says, "You're sure?"

I nod jerkily. "Yes."

I don't realize how much the scratchy wool of my trousers bothers me until Peeta slides them over my hips and down my legs. My heated skin rejoices as the pants slide over my little feet and are forgotten somewhere on the floor. Now I'm before Peeta in nothing but a pair of practical boy shorts, worn thin from years of use, and while there is still adrenaline in my veins to make me brave, I remove those too. They would have come off anyway, and this way, it's over with.

Peeta's eyes widen, then quickly flash up to my face, as if he's afraid of scaring me off if he looks at me. My heart thrums, and I tug at the collar of his sweater with shaking fingers. He is fully dressed, while I am fully naked, and it feels wrong. He sits up to yank the sweater over his head, followed by the shirt underneath, and my hands go to his chest as he settles over me once again. I notice he leaves his own trousers in place, though the hard thing at my thigh is no less present. In a moment, he grips my hips and lifts me towards the head of the bed so I'm half propped up on the abundance of pillows he likes to keep there. He then shifts sideways to lie beside me. I miss his steady heat pressing me into the mattress. I'm cold without it, even under the quilts.

He seems to be gearing himself up to say something, and I'm perfectly content to take deep breaths, steadying myself, while I wait.

"Katniss," he starts, then lowers his voice by half a degree. "Do you ever… touch yourself?"

I'm confused, and my eyes must show this, because he elaborates, "Do you ever make yourself feel good?"

I don't know what he means. Make myself feel good? What does that entail? Eating well? Sleeping, laughing, appreciating beauty in the world? These are all things that Doctor Aurelius suggested, to help drag me out of the mental rut I dug for myself in the past years. But something tells me that none of them are what Peeta is referring to. There's an intensity in his eyes that hints at something profound, or something secret.

"I don't understand," I say, stiffly, because it's hard for me to admit. I don't like looking like an idiot, and that's how I feel right now.

Peeta lets out a long breath, dropping his gaze to something at my shoulder. After several moments, he looks back to me, resolve hardening his jaw.

"Do you trust me, Katniss?"

I nod.

"Will you let me try something?"

I nod again, but I ask, "What?"

"I want to make you feel good." His gaze burns into me, conveying a fire that mirrors that in my belly.

My mind flashes to his hands, his mouth, pleasuring me just minutes ago. An echo of heat pulses through me at the thought, rekindling the cooling embers. "You already have."

He gives a short, strained laugh. "You really don't know, do you?"

"What?" I demand, irked.

His lips slide along my jaw and down my throat, pacifying me. "Just relax, Katniss," he says, reaching one hand up to pet my hair, running his fingers along the silky weave of my braid. "Relax and trust me. Can you do that for me?"

I feel as if I'm agreeing to something monumental, something that looms, shapeless, above me, neither welcoming nor threatening, when I breathe, "Yes."

At first, he sticks to what we know. His hands rub the muscles in my arms, his fingers trace circles just above my knees, his lips cover mine. He eases my nerves with the familiarity of kissing, and, bit-by-bit, I relax, just as promised. His hands stroke my cheeks and I try not to think. Just feel. A hundred questions whirl inside my mind, but I try to ignore them. After a while, it becomes easier. I fall into the rhythm of our simple embrace, lulled by the movements of his jaw and the flick of his velvet tongue against mine. I almost forget about my state of undress.

I don't notice, at first, when his right hand leaves my side to drift downwards. I expect it to skim along the outside of my thigh, travel down my calf, then reverse the journey, as he's done maybe a thousand times before. Instead, his fingers glide smoothly over my belly, towards the apex of my thighs, where that fluttering ache has manifested itself. I jump violently, jerking my head back to look at him with big, bewildered eyes. He stills, his fingers resting on the patch of dark, downy curls that protects the most secret part of my body. My pulse pounds in my temples and in the tips of my fingers, and I swallow thickly, staring into his eyes. They are deep and gentle and sincere, promising me anything, everything. He lifts his brows a fraction of an inch. A question. _Should I stop?_

But I don't want him to stop. My whole body trembles and I don't think I've ever been so nervous or embarrassed in my life, but I don't want him to stop. Never before has the mysterious throbbing been so intense and palpable. My body has known more pain than it could handle, sometimes, but this is the sweetest torture I've ever felt. The apex of my thighs is hot, slick and agonizingly hollow. And Peeta's fingers are _so_ close, resting just inches from the source of the throbbing. If he moved just a bit downwards –

"Please," I beg, speaking without knowing exactly what I'm asking for. _Please, soothe this ache, quench this fire, end this torture._ "Please, Peeta."

He lets out a sound deep in his throat, something between a groan and a curse, and his free hand goes to my hip, rolling me until I'm on my side, hooking underneath my knee. He drags my leg towards him until it's draped over his thigh, leaving me completely open to him. I have to turn my face into a pillow for a moment, spending yet another wave of embarrassment in little gasps. By the time I raise my head, Peeta has dragged his eyes away from my center just long enough to whisper, "Hold onto me, Katniss."

I fling my arms around his shoulders, grabbing on tight, preparing myself. Every nerve in my body buzzes, aware that something is about to happen. The air under the covers is thick with our breaths and with anticipation.

His fingers brush over the triangle of thick curls between my legs, descending painfully slowly towards my slit. My fingers dig into his shoulders. My hips twitch. And then he pushes down, and the tips of his fingers slip between my folds. Groans escape into the air. Mine. His. He drags the tips of two fingers along the hot seam, coating them in the slick fluid that gathers there. Up, down, and up again, never venturing too far, always coming back to the source of the wetness. When he dips his index finger a little ways inside me, I inhale harshly, then breathe out a stream of half-formed words and praises. If I felt hollow before, I am _empty_ now, desperate for something to fill me.

Then I realize exactly _what_ is supposed to fill me. I feel his hardness against my thigh again, and this time, instead of more embarrassment, a bolt of longing shoots through me, sharp and strong.

"Oh," I gasp, "Oh."

It's as if I've forgotten all other words. All at once, I remember everything I've ever heard about what happens between a man and a woman. Will that happen? Will Peeta be… inside of me? Will we – _could we_ go that far?

I try to ask a question, but all that comes out is a shaky moan. I try again. "P-peeta?"

"Shh," Peeta hushes, sliding his free hand to my breast and tugging at the nipple. Obediently, I let the question die on my lips, dissolving into a sigh.

His finger dips into me again, sinking to the first knuckle, then slipping out and returning to its path up my slit.

All at once, Peeta spreads my folds with his fingers, exposing me to the warm air under the quilts. He leans back slightly to examine me in the dim light, pushing himself a foot farther down the bed. I'm strung too tight to be uncomfortable under his scrutiny, and Peeta looks his fill, an expression akin to wonder spread over his face. My head falls back against the pillows with a thump. It's too much work to watch him. Something between my folds, when exposed to the air, starts pulsing with my heartbeat, the now-familiar throb between my legs concentrating in one spot. It's as torturous as the hollowness inside me, and I swivel my hips, press them towards Peeta's hand, desperate for stimulation.

His wandering fingers brush past my opening, continuing farther up the spread petals of my femininity. I hear him curse quietly, and then an open-mouthed kiss lands on my breast. "Perfect," he sighs, his breath dampening the stiff nipple. "Katniss."

"Peeta. Oh, Peeta."

All at once, without any warning of any kind, Peeta's fingers find something wonderful. A kernel of pure bliss, hidden away between my velvet folds. It's the briefest of touches, just a brush of calloused skin, but it sends a bone-deep shiver of pleasure shooting from the source all the way through my hips, seeping up through my belly and heating the muscles of my thighs. A high, needy whimper bursts from my lips, and already my hips are circling, pushing, searching for that thing again. Peeta's hand pauses, then carefully retraces its path. I roll my head towards him to find his gaze already on me, wide-eyed and alert, aware that he's discovered something. His fingers bump over the bundle of nerves and my whine opens abruptly into a full-throated moan. Once he locates the epicenter of pleasure, Peeta devotes himself to it. He presses his thumb against it, on and off, rhythmically, until jerky breaths have become the norm. His fingers circle it, lightly, just barely touching it, teasing me endlessly. I let go of his shoulders to pound my fists into the mattress.

And then he begins to add pressure.

"Oh – oh!" I cry.

His thumb is circling, now rubbing, now worshipping the exquisite pearl of flesh with ecstasy-inducing caresses. My hips snap with his movements and my head whips from side to side, mouth open, unable to take in enough air. Peeta is murmuring something to me, but the meaning of the words get lost on their way through my ears. He shifts his hand, just a degree, and with that new angle, any control I had left leaves me.

"Peeta!" I cry. "Peeta!"

"Katniss."

The exchange of names prefaces an increase in tempo, in pressure, that leaves my muscles twitching in ecstasy. Pleasure blossoms in me, unfurling like a glorious flower, crackling as it consumes me. I thought I was somewhat of an expert on fire, having been a Girl on Fire for nearly two years, and then nearly dying from burning alive. Now, I am burning alive again, and I relish every second.

Peeta has to roll on top of me to keep my thrashing body in place. He sucks greedily at first one breast and then the other, no longer gentle but fervent and strong, supporting himself with one forearm braced on the mattress above my head.

The torrent inside me is nearing pain, now – sweet, magnificent pain – and my body is taut as a bowstring, primed to fire. I may snap from the tension, but I can't bring myself to care. All that matters is that Peeta doesn't stop. My world has narrowed to him, his mouth, his hand, his broad chest hovering above me. He begins pumping one finger into me, using his thumb to grind down on the delicate little pebble between my folds, and a great shudder goes through me, seeming to emanate from my very bones. Unrestrained moans pour from my throat, broken only by the occasional utterance of Peeta's name. I'm close, _so_ close, but to what I don't know.

Another shudder.

Somehow, Peeta's words break through the fog. "That's it, Katniss," he pants at my throat. "It's all right. I've got you. Let go."

I shatter. Pleasure spikes in my belly, shooting through the muscles of my vulnerable thighs and bursting like a firecracker throughout my body. It resonates in me like a clap of thunder, but lasting far longer, keeping me arched up off the mattress until the very last.

I drift back to reality an undeterminable amount of time later, pressed tightly to Peeta's chest, lungs heaving. My body is damp with sweat, and a drop of the stuff tickles the skin at my hairline. My muscles ache and spasm randomly, and the space between my legs is feverish and slick, the flesh quivering and sensitive. I feel absolutely wonderful.

Peeta extracts his hand from between us, and it comes away shiny with my silky fluids. Carefully, he moves himself off me and pulls me over to half lie on him. I could hardly resist, even if I wanted to – my limbs are all but useless, heavy as they would be after a long run. I'm cradled to him, and it's a long time before either one of us speaks.

"What," I finally manage weakly, "W-what was that?"

Peeta looks puzzled. "What, you've… You've never climaxed?" He searches my confused eyes, then shakes his head. "No, I suppose you wouldn't, would you? Not if you've never even touched yourself."

I think I should be insulted by that statement, but I'm not. Fatigue creeps through my veins, making it hard to pay attention to what Peeta's saying. I try to hide a yawn against his shoulder. I don't know why I should be so tired.

A soft laugh puffs from Peeta's lips. He strokes my hair, sliding out the tie and separating the sections of the braid, combing through the knots with his fingers. "Go on to sleep, Katniss," he orders softly. "I'll be right here."

I should refuse, but I can't. I crumple against him, melting into the natural heat of his half-clothed body, breathing in the scent of cinnamon and honey and sweat.

A whisper against my cheek. "Just so you know, that was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

I don't have time to register the sentence before I fall asleep.


	4. Chapter Four

I shouldn't be surprised. The temperatures have been below zero for some time, now. It makes sense that the hot water pipes would fail. Still, the shock of icy water sends me skittering out of the shower with a shriek, shaking drops off my arms and cursing the plumbing with every one of Haymitch's worst swears. My hand gropes for the knob, slamming the water off with a screech and a gurgle from the pipes.

Two knocks on the door. "Katniss? Are you all right?"

"'m okay!" I holler, ripping a towel from the bar to wrap around myself. Tangling my fingers in the absorbent fabric to keep it looped around my body, I open the door.

Peeta raises his eyebrows at the sight of me, wearing nothing but a towel, hair damp and skin pricked with goose bumps.

"Hot water's out," I explain shortly.

"Ah."

Grumbling, I retreat into the bathroom again, sending a harsh glare towards the shower so it knows what it's done. I dress as quickly as is humanly possible. When I emerge, Peeta is waiting beside the window, looking a bit lost with his pajamas still slung over one arm. He would have taken his own shower after me, if the pattern had not been disrupted. "What now?" he asks.

"We heat water on the stove."

I'm already hobbling down the stairs, heel throbbing sharply, and Peeta hurries to catch up with me. His uneven footsteps follow me into the kitchen. "On the stove? Will that be enough?"

I shrug. "It's how we took baths in the Seam."

In the Merchant part of District Twelve, people had real bathtubs, sometimes even showers, albeit less clean and efficient than the ones in the Victors' Village. They washed with delicately scented squares of soap from the apothecary and indulged in warm, clear water to rinse off. In the Seam, you were lucky if you had so much as a makeshift tub to bathe in, let alone clean water. Ours was about three feet in diameter and made from dull, dented tin, handles on each side. It was the same wash bin we scrubbed our clothes in. Dad barely fit in it. His knees stuck out way over the rim and he had to contort his back to squeeze himself into the egg-shaped space. We always took baths in twos – one person to bathe, and one to pour water over them from an old pitcher. Mom and Dad helped each other, and Prim and I took our turn after them. We all used the same water, warmed for each person with a fresh kettle of boiling water.

Grimacing as pain radiates from my bandaged heel, I open my mouth to call for Prim. She can start the water while I find the tub. Maybe she can mix up something to help the cut so I can stop limping. Maybe –

The words stop before they even make it to my lips. They stick in my throat, swelling until they choke me from the inside. Prim isn't here. Prim will never be here again. I stupidly squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the sudden moisture in them to make paths down my cheeks in the form of tears.

But I'm not crying. I'm not.

"Katniss?"

I realize I've stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen, and my feet jerk me forward, towards the pantry. The wash bin should still be hanging by a nail at the back wall. It was what Mom used to transport our possessions to the Victors' Village after the first games, being the largest container we owned at the time. There must be an open jar of pepper nearby, or maybe a cut onion, because the moisture in my eyes refuses to leave. I lift the bin down, stumbling a bit under the unwieldy object, and inch my way backwards out of the pantry. Peeta is hovering beside the table, watching me quietly.

"Katniss?" he says again.

The wash tub hits the floor with a metallic thud and I push it into a corner with my toes, holding a sleeve to my nose. I'm _not_ crying.

_Think about something else._

The cold water still works, at least. I fill all the kettles we own and set them on the stove to heat. Peeta wordlessly comes to build up the fire in the middle oven. For the hundredth time, I give a silent prayer of thanks that he refused the Capitol's offer to install electrical ovens. At least if the electricity fails, too, we won't be wanting for light or warmth.

One of the kitchen walls is dominated by no less than three large, pot-bellied, wood-burning stoves. The stovepipes converge beside the fireplace, where they shoot into the bricks and vanish into the structure of the chimney. It's a mirror image of what's in Peeta's own Victors' residence, constructed within a week of his request. Four days after he made the call, a small crew arrived by train to deliver and assemble the two extra stoves. I vanished into the woods the moment they came into view, but Peeta stayed to supervise their work and joke good-naturedly about the abundance of baked goods he would create. He told me afterwards that it was the same crew that came to install the ovens in his own house just after our first Games. After I essentially stabbed him in the heart just beyond the train tracks.

The last kettle clangs onto the stovetop and I push the heels of my hands into my eyes. It seems as if every train of thought leads me to something bad – Prim, Mom, Dad, the Games…

A pair of hands light on my hips. "Maybe you should go rest," Peeta suggests gently. "I think I can finish this. I'll call you down when it's ready."

I wriggle away petulantly, snapping, "I'm fine." And then, because even I can hear the thickness in my voice, "I'm _not_ crying."

"I didn't say you were," he says, but I know he doesn't believe me.

"I'm _not_. It's the onions in the pantry. They're m-making my eyes water." I drag the back of my hand across my face in an angry swipe. My sleeve comes to rest at my nose again and I sniff. Twice. "A-and this st-tupid weather is giving me a c-cold."

I shuffle to the cupboard, intending to brew some tea, only to remember that I used all the kettles to heat bath water. Frustrated now, I kick open a cupboard under the counter and haul out a small pot, filling it with water and fitting it on the last corner of the active stove. My fist closes over a packet of Earl Gray and I fling it into the pot with a small _plop_. The sound of the tea sinking into the water, hissing as little pockets of air escape, is the only noise in the room except for my occasional sniff.

I limp to a chair and lower myself into it, using my hands to lift my heel onto the one opposite me. Peeta pulls up a seat and becomes absorbed in the grain of the wood table.

I sniff, switching sleeves. The tears won't stop, no matter how hard I try, and Peeta still doesn't say a thing. This is what he does. Sometimes, he tries to coax it out of me, using his silver tongue and kind voice to loosen my words. And sometimes he just sits, waiting patiently, knowing I need him near but not pushing anything. He's becoming good at that – reading me. I guess I am, too. I can tell when an episode is bad enough that I need to leave, and when it can be chased away with a few kisses and caresses. Sometimes I sing. We protect each other, just like always.

"Prim," I blurt. "It's Prim. We used to t-take baths together. She should-" A hiccup interrupts my sentence. "B-be here!"

My words end in a wail and Peeta enfolds me in his arms, drawing me from my chair to his, allowing me to cry into his shirt.

Her cornsilk hair. Her giggle. Her small, pale hands, so agile and so skillful at everything she tried. Her smile.

I sob harder.

On the stove, the first kettle begins to scream.

* * *

I don't calm down until the bath is ready. Peeta wraps a quilt around my shoulders and pours me a mug of strong Earl Gray before carefully extracting himself to begin filling the tub. He pours in a bucket of cold water followed by every one of the boiling kettles, then fills them again to start the process over. The cycle repeats itself twice more – bucket, kettles, fill, heat, bucket, kettles, fill, heat – before the small tub is nearly full. By now, my sobs are reduced to hiccups, and I rise shakily. While Peeta tacks up blankets over the kitchen doorways, effectively trapping the steam rising from the tub, I hop to the pantry and pull down a heaping handful of dried herbs. Lavender, chamomile, basil, anything I can think of. Peppermint leaves and calendula join the pile. Mom used to put oatmeal in baths, after we moved to the Village. I add that too. Peeta raises his eyebrows but doesn't question me as I sprinkle the mishmash of fragrant herbs into the bathwater, not bothering to tie them into a sachet. They bob happily on the surface for some moments, then grow heavy with water and sink to the bottom. The steam turns sweet with the essence of earthy plants.

Last, I fetch a pitcher, several towels and a plain cake of soap, setting them beside the tub. We stand awkwardly for a while, unsure what happens next, until Peeta points out that I've forgotten shampoo and slips out of the kitchen.

As soon as he leaves, I lean back against the counter, letting out a breath. When I began heating water for a bath, I never considered how we would handle the actual bathing. Really, you need two people for one person to take a bath in a wash tub. It's possible to wash yourself, but very difficult. The cramped space offers little opportunity for back scrubbing, and pouring water over yourself from a pitcher is hit-or-miss – mostly miss. That's why my family always bathed in pairs. Even after we moved into the Victors' Village, Prim and I occasionally bathed together, out of habit. I remember her blowing bubbles off her palm in the ridiculously large, porcelain tub upstairs.

Sniffling, I shake my head. No use thinking about that now.

I'm busy rewrapping my heel in waterproof bandages when Peeta returns with the shampoo. Along with the bottle, he's brought my nightgown, and he sets both of these on the table.

"I'll just," he says, and gestures vaguely over his shoulder. "I mean, let me know when you're done." He turns, pauses, turns back and says, "Should I start some more kettles?"

I nod. The water will cool between now and the time when his turn comes.

Peeta busies himself with the stove and I push the quilt off my shoulders. It lands on my chair in a crumpled heap. My shirt follows it, and then my pants. The air in the kitchen is warm and damp and smelling of herbs, and it seems to swirl against the skin of my torso and legs. The wood floor, in contrast, is cold, and I suppress a shiver as I approach the tub.

A small sound of surprise emanates from the other side of the room and I know Peeta has turned around. I'm still wearing under things, but I gulp anyway. I can feel his gaze tracing up my legs and back to my braid, which I quickly pull around my shoulder and begin to undo.

Peeta's voice is strange as he says, "I'll be in the living room."

He's just about to pull aside the blanket over the doorway when I turn. "Peeta?"

"Hmm?"

I become fascinated with the ground at my feet. "Will you help me?" I clear my throat and speak again, since the first attempt barely made it past my lips. "Later? Will you help me wash my hair?" I gesture to the wash bin. "It's… difficult, when you're alone."

His eyes soften. "Of course, Katniss. Just let me know when."

I nod and he ducks out of the kitchen.

I wait until the blanket stops swaying before I twist my arms behind me and undo the clasp of my bra. I tuck it, and my panties, between my shirt and pants, then hurriedly cross to the tub and step in. The water laps at my skin as I lower myself in, steam blooming around me in a perfumed cloud. Lavender, mint and chamomile surround me in a comforting veil, soothing my still-itching eyes. I fold myself completely into the tub, thankful for my petite stature, and lean back as best I can against the tin lip.

I know I need to wash quickly and call for Peeta to help with my hair, or else the water will grow cold, but I can't make myself move just yet. I sit with my legs crossed, knees propped up on the edges of the tub, arms trailing in the water. The herbs mix with the lingering scents of Peeta's daily culinary creations, resulting in a heavy, distinctive aroma that threatens to put me to sleep. I tip my head back, letting the ends of my hair fall into the water behind me, and my mind drifts.

Maybe as a sort of defense mechanism, my mind veers away from the dark thoughts that have hung about me since I descended the stairs, instead seeking out something comforting. Something happy. Something pleasurable. Of course, it returns to Peeta, in my bed just yesterday morning. I squirm, glancing towards the covered doorway as if he could sense my thoughts from the living room. But however much my cheeks heat, I can't stop my mind from replaying those moments on a loop. The delicious tug of his lips at my breast. His breath on my neck. His hand… I blush three shades past scarlet. _His hand between my legs._

I remember how he pressed me down into the mattress, how his finger dipped a little ways inside of me, drawing sounds from me I never knew I could make. I remember the little epicenter of pleasure he found between my folds, and how he devoted himself to it, circling and rubbing until –

I'm shocked to find my own hand travelling to the apex of my thighs. Angrily, I jerk it away, sloshing the water in the tub and cursing the weakness of my body. And yet… And yet.

I bite my lip hard and stare at the doorway. The blanket is completely still, not stirred by any current of air. Peeta is in the living room, probably reading or drawing. Every so often, I hear him sigh or clear his throat.

Slowly, so slowly, I allow my hand to drift between my legs. My fingers find my slit, and, heart pounding in fear of being caught, I push through. My own wetness, separate from the bathwater, began to build the moment I thought of what happened in my bed. It takes very little to collect a bit of the slippery juices and bring them to that place Peeta discovered yesterday.

I'm almost disappointed. Almost. My slender fingers don't feel half as good as Peeta's did, though I can't imagine why. But it's hard to be disappointed when I'm enjoying these sensations.

I try to mimic Peeta's motions, pressing at the bundle of nerves with the pad of one finger. Gradually, ticklish waves of pleasure begin to flutter in my belly, occasionally extending through my hips if I hit a particularly wonderful angle. My muscles twitch as the sweet ache feeds on itself, and I'm stuck between wanting to spread my legs wider and wanting to snap them shut. With a sigh that's dangerously close to becoming a moan, I close my eyes. If this is what Peeta meant by touching myself, I understand why he was surprised when I said I didn't. The pressure builds and I find that my left hand has moved itself to my breasts, pinching at the erect nipples. I can feel my pulse in my temples and fingertips, adrenaline mixing with desire. Experimentally, I begin to move faster, and my hips momentarily rock upward. Water washes over the edge of the tub and I freeze, eyes flashing open and fixing on the doorway. The blanket stays in place, and Peeta makes no indication that he heard the splash. But it's enough to snap me out of my haze.

_I should not be doing this. Not here, not now, not ever._

Ashamedly, I remove my fingers from my nether regions, sitting up straight to reach for the soap. I work up a thick lather, scrubbing both of my hands raw, and then give the rest of my body a quick once-over with the suds.

My mind won't shut down, though. Without my consent, it lingers over details of the day. Peeta's scent. His shoulders, his shy smile. Then I think of the moment when I felt his hardness at my thigh, insistent. He told me I didn't need to pay him back, but – well. Old habits die hard. I can't let a debt go unpaid. I _will_ pay him back, and soon.

Only once I've changed positions, bringing my knees together to kneel in the tub rather than sit, do I clear my throat and call, "Peeta?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you help me with my hair?"

There's the sound of paper rustling, and then his footsteps as he approaches the blanket. I take the remaining three seconds before he arrives to turn myself away from the door, presenting him with my shoulders and upper back. Maybe then he won't see the red tint to my face. I feel like he would see it in my eyes, if I looked at him. He would know what I've been up to, and he would be… what, disgusted? Maybe. Probably.

The blanket moves aside with the low sound of fabric against fabric and a slight breath of air, cool in comparison to the steamy kitchen, whispers past me. I don't – can't – turn around.

Peeta's footsteps move to the table, then stop just behind me. The pitcher appears at my side, dipping into the warm water, and bits of herbs swirl in the current it creates. "Close your eyes," Peeta instructs, and I do. Underwater, my hands are shaking. Does he know? Can he tell?

The pitcher lifts, disappearing behind me, and a moment later Peeta's hand is under my chin, tilting my head back as the water pours over my hair. Once more, the pitcher dips underwater, just at my side, then empties itself over me, and Peeta holds out the bottle of shampoo. It almost slips out of my hand when I grab it.

As I squeeze a blob of shampoo into my palm and start to massage it into my hair, my heart rate begins to slow. A chair is dragged across the wood floor with a squeak and Peeta sits down behind me. As I scrub at my head, he dips his hands into the water and begins to pour handfuls over my shoulders, rinsing soap and shampoo from my skin. Even though I'm naked, I'm not as nervous as I could be. From the position we're in, all Peeta is likely to see is my back, and he hasn't made any mention of the dark ring of water around the tub from my unplanned splash. Maybe he can't tell, after all. Maybe I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be.

I finish washing my hair and begin to pull my fingers through the largest of the knots. Peeta takes this as his cue to refill the pitcher. He pours it over my head slowly, giving me time to work the soap out. When the last of the slick shampoo is gone, Peeta offers me a hand. I hesitate, nervous all over again, but then sternly tell myself to get a grip. _He's already seen me naked, anyway,_ I reason, placing my hand in his. He pulls me to my feet, sending streams of water running down my body. Peeta's eyes stay dutifully locked on mine. Herbs stick to my skin, and I have no doubt they're in my hair. I'm brushing at them impatiently when Peeta catches my wrist, stilling my hand.

"Let me."

One last time, the pitcher descends into the cloudy water. It's lukewarm now, and wraps around my limbs like a fluid embrace as Peeta carefully pours. He targets the clumps of herbs and crumbled flower petals until they run down my legs and into the bath. Remnants of soap join them, the suds clinging to my calves at the waterline. I notice he pays special attention to my chest, though barely any bubbles have gathered there.

At last, the final drops fall from the pitcher's rim and Peeta sets it back on the table. I step out onto the towel he lays down and go about drying myself. I'm in such a hurry that patches of my skin are still damp when I yank my nightgown over my head. I coil my dripping hair into a haphazard bun at the crown of my head, securing it with two pencils I find on the table. Then, for the first time since he entered the kitchen, Peeta and I face each other.

I glance regretfully at the tepid, soapy water. "I can pour it out and heat up another tub," I offer weakly, knowing it will take longer than either one of us is likely to wait.

Peeta shakes his head. "No. I can deal with a little soap." He flashes me that crooked grin of his and I offer a small smile in return.

While Peeta undresses, I warm the bath – _his_ bath now, I realize – with the kettles that have been sitting at the back of the stove since I climbed into my own. In an effort to freshen the water, even by a little bit, I scoop out several large pitchers and toss them down the sink before adding the new batch of hot water. At least it's not so cloudy now. As an afterthought, I go to the pantry and retrieve another, smaller handful of mint and lavender. This time I make the effort to find a small bag of cheesecloth to put them in. It hits the water with a happy splash and sinks almost immediately to the bottom.

What next? Tea. Peeta gave me tea before my bath. I should give him some before his. The Earl Gray is cold now, and bitter-strong besides, so I restart the pot with what I remember to be Peeta's favorite: chamomile, splashed with cream but untouched by sugar. I frown down at the brewing pot. If there's tea, there should rightfully be something to go with it. I dig in the pantry for a bit before producing a small box of plain lemon shortbread, imported from the Capitol. They're dry, and not nearly as good as Peeta's baking, but it's the best I can do on short notice. To make up for my incompetence, I arrange four of the cookies on a small plate and set them on the table, within arm's reach of the tub. The pot is steaming, now, and I deftly put together a passable cup of chamomile tea to set beside the cookies. There.

I turn to find Peeta, sitting at the edge of a chair, halfway through extracting his prosthetic from his pant leg. He's looking at me with something I can only describe as awe. It's an expression that I've seen more often on pre-Games Peeta than post-Games Peeta, and I wonder what brought it on. Did one of the scents or sounds in the room trigger a random memory?

He won't stop gaping at me, and I'm beginning to think I've done something wrong.

"What?" I say, a defensive edge making the word more forceful than I intended.

His answer is quiet, and yet his voice strains as if he's yelling. "You didn't have to do that, you know."

"What? Warm your bath?"

He opens and closes his mouth several times, then shakes his head. "You don't know, do you?"

"What?" I ask again, and this time I'm definitely irked. What am I not seeing? What is he suggesting? That I'm an idiot for missing something that's completely obvious? I can almost feel myself puff up, like a scrawny alley cat defending its territory against a bear. The image is pathetic. Laughable. "If there's something you'd like to say, spit it out."

He tries to stand, only to get caught on the pant leg that still clings to one calf. I go to him and deftly pull it away, draping the trousers on the back of his chair. Before I can move away again, he traps my hands in his and begins peppering them with kisses. His lips grace my palms, fingers, wrists. I flush to think of what those hands were doing just minutes ago. If Peeta knew, would he still kiss them?

"What?" I say for a third time.

"You," he replies hoarsely. "You made me tea. And cookies. And warmed my bath."

My answer is halting. "Of – course." Is that all? These simple acts, which pale in comparison to what Peeta has done for me?

He gives a small sniffle and tries to disguise it as a cough, but I know better. It's been an emotional evening for both of us. First me, with Prim, and now Peeta. Maybe he was looking through our memory book in the living room, and that's why he's suddenly so sensitive to my pitiful offerings. Yes, that's probably it. I can relate. There have been days where I read our book and come away bawling over something as simple as a flower or a mitten.

I gently draw one hand from his grip and begin to rub his back. He already removed his shirt, so my palm slides over bare skin. He tugs me forward so he can rest his forehead just below my collar bone, riding out the rest of his sniffles by holding onto me. Outside, the wind gusts against the house, sending loose shingles rattling. Snow hisses against the window. The fire snaps.

Peeta calms after some minutes, and I tell him he should get in the bath before it gets cold.

He nods. I step away and am about to leave the room when he calls me back.

"Will you…?" He gestures towards the shiny metal and plastic of his prosthetic. He gives a tense smile. "I'm not supposed to wear it while bathing, and… It's difficult when you're alone."

So our places are well and truly reversed now.

I nod and return to kneel between his feet. His eyes go wide, and I halt. "What's wrong?"

He shakes his head, swallows with a dry sound and waves me on.

Puzzled, I reach for the clasps that secure the fake limb to flesh. It connects just below his knee. I've never taken it off for him before, but I've watched him undo the clasps plenty of times before he closes the bathroom door to take a shower. Sometimes, on days where it aches especially badly, he takes it off to sleep. I don't often see him without it. I ease the fake limb off, setting aside, and then reach for the sock. It's supposed to act as a barrier between the prosthetic and the sensitive skin where his leg ends, to minimize rubbing. But I can see that it's been bothering him lately. He needs to get it refitted. The skin is red and swollen from the constant irritation. I give a small, unhappy sound as I roll off the sock and place a feather-light kiss at his knee.

"You shouldn't stand so much," I say sternly. "Give it a rest sometime. You're not doing yourself any favors by pacing constantly."

Peeta mock-salutes. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Oh, get in your bath," I say, flicking a hand at him dismissively.

He grins and lifts his hips, hooking his thumbs over the waistband of his boxers. I realize just in time and spin away, face flaming.

"I still don't see how you can be bothered by this after everything," he chuckles.

I grunt and pointedly look elsewhere while I offer him an arm. He leans on me to for the three feet to the tub, then braces his arms on the table to quickly hop into the water. I hold onto his forearms for leverage as he lowers himself into the tub.

"This is why I usually take showers," he explains apologetically. "Hard to get into baths. Hard to get out."

"I'll help," I say as I move towards the door. "Just call me."

Before the blanket swings back over the doorway, I hear him say, "I know."

* * *

"I love your hair, Katniss."

I shiver.

Peeta's words are whispers against my neck, his lips moving at my earlobe. His real leg curls around one of mine, while the prosthetic stretches out in front of us, stiff toes pointed towards the fireplace. I hook my fingers around my ankles to keep myself sitting up. I realize that this position – criss-cross-applesauce, I once heard Annie call it – leaves me with my thighs parted wide, knees pointed in opposite directions, even while my feet press together at the soles. Perhaps Peeta intended this. My legs form a cradle, swathed in the welcome weight of a bulky quilt, my lower half kept warm by fire-warmed wool. My upper half is kept warm by Peeta. His right forearm presses firmly just under my ribs, keeping me in place while his left hand goes to work.

Even through the thick flannel of my nightgown, cold rivulets of water drip from the ends of my hair and onto my skin. I'm sure my back is puckered in gooseflesh under the damp fabric. The hair on my arms stands up, although it's not from the water. It's from the comb. Peeta drags it through sections of my dripping hair, brushing out snarls with his unfailing patience. The sharp pulls and muttered _sorry_ 's gradually abate as he works through the knots, and after many minutes, the comb slides down my neck and back with little resistance. Peeta's actions slow, and I'm disappointed; I don't want this unexpected luxury to end. The feel of the comb's teeth against my scalp sends tingling shivers spreading down my spine and through my skull. It's a calming, almost pleasurable sensation. I want it to last.

"I've always loved your hair," Peeta continues in an undertone. "Ever since you wore it in two braids and tied it with red ribbons."

The slight vibration of his voice touches the skin behind my ear and I sigh contentedly.

"I love it in one braid, too. Like a rope of silk."

He's rambling now, almost nonsensically, like he does when he's trying to calm me down after a relapse. Not talking about anything important, really, just… talking. I do it, too, sometimes. Ramble. I'll look up and realize that I've been speaking to an empty room, narrating my own actions or telling the furniture about my day. It's the flip-side of the weeks when I don't speak a word to anyone or anything. Doctor Aurelius assures me it's perfectly normal, but it annoys me. I used to be able to keep my thoughts inside my head so easily. Now, I find myself blurting secrets to the ottoman. It's infuriating.

Peeta, on the other hand, seems to enjoy it. I'll walk in on him gently instructing the walls about the technicalities of mixing oil paints, smiling all the while. Or, sometimes he'll talk to me, out of habit, speaking without actually _saying_ anything. Like, it seems, now.

"I love the color." The comb drags across my hairline, just enough to make my skin prickle pleasantly. "I love everything about it."

A small sound of resignation escapes me as the comb disappears. It's over, then. I move to sit up, but Peeta surprises me by tightening the muscled band of his right arm, anchoring me to him. "But I especially love _this._ "

And then his hands are in my hair, fingers tangling themselves in the damp locks, tugging with just the right intensity to send shocks of those tingling shivers cascading though my upper body. I shudder involuntarily as his fingers rub strands of my hair together, combing through them, arranging them this way and that. His fingernails just barely scratch my scalp, and that's all it takes to pull a small moan from me.

His lips are at my earlobe again. A knowing whisper, barely more than a breath, but not concealing his almost-smirk.

"I know. I like it, too."

His right hand begins to inch under the hem of my nightgown.

But I remember my decision in the bath, and the word bursts from my mouth.

"Wait!" I twist onto my knees, spinning to face him so that I'm kneeling in the gap between his bent legs. His face shows a flash of hurt, and I stumble over my words to reassure him. "I want – I mean – I want to do something for you. Too." I recall his words from a day ago. "I want to make you feel good."

Peeta's jaw falls slack, then tightens with an indecipherable expression. His lips say the same thing they did last time: "You don't need to." But his eyes give him away. Dark and hungry, they stare into mine, conveying a longing that burns my skin wherever it touches. I suddenly understand why Peeta was so eager to give me pleasure and deny his own – the silent yearning in his gaze urges me on, makes me push aside my own needs. My fingers twitch, palms itching for motion, but _what_ motion? I do want to make him feel good. I just don't know how.

Instead of using the words I know I'll trip on, I lean forward, using the height of my kneeling position to hover my face over his. He tips his head back to meet my lips, and I sigh. This, at least, is something I can do. We kiss, and though my lips move fluently with his, I'm on autopilot. How am I going to accomplish this? I'm no seductress, that's for damn sure. I don't know how to please a man. I've never even thought of it, before now. But I do know Peeta. I know how he reacts to certain things. How he sighs when I push my fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck. How he likes to hold my hips or cradle me on his lap.

So I use what I know.

My fingers tremble as I reach for the hem of Peeta's shirt. I pull it up just an inch, then lean back to gauge his reaction. His pink tongue darts out to wet his lips. Those pleading eyes, the deep cobalt blue of late evening, stare into mine. My hands move and the shirt rolls up his back and over his head.

Peeta opens his mouth to say something, but I won't let him. I close in again, drawing his lower lip between mine, worrying it with my teeth. Under my palms, I feel the tension drain out of the muscles in his back. His sigh passes through his mouth and into mine. A touch at my spine, and then at my neck, and then Peeta has his fingers in my hair again. The pleasurable shivers drizzle down my body and my back arches in response, unintentionally pressing my breasts against his bare chest. He groans.

I squirm backwards, trying to kick away the quilt that's tangled around my legs. Peeta follows me, searching for my lips, and without either of us quite meaning to we end up lying down, hips-to-hips and chest-to-chest, Peeta's weight keeping me pinned against the dusty living room carpet. I can't say I don't enjoy this new development, but it won't do. How am I supposed to… _attend_ to him like this?

"Sit up," I order, my voice a thin gasp.

Almost reluctantly, Peeta does as I say, and I push myself up on my elbows to look at him. His hair is mussed up, his ribs rise and fall with deep, rapid breaths and his lips are flushed and shiny with a sheen of saliva. But his gaze is tense and his hands fist in the fabric of the discarded quilt. He's just as nervous as I am.

I bow my lips into my mouth to wet them. My swallow is dry. "Is this okay?"

His chin dips, and I guess it's a nod.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach for the waistband of his pajama pants. Obligingly, he lifts his hips, and I'm reminded of when he stripped down in the kitchen. Now, just like then, I look away, choosing a spot over his shoulder to focus on while he helps me tug the pants down over his thighs, knees, feet. I fold the pants, smoothing them unnecessarily to give my hands something to do.

"You can look, you know," Peeta says quietly. "I don't mind."

 _I do,_ I think, but then I inwardly scowl at myself. I started this whole venture so I could bring Peeta the same kind of pleasure he brought me. If I'm going to do that, I'm going to have to look eventually. But I can't make myself do it. _Coward,_ a voice whispers in my head.

It's that voice that pushes me far enough to look. I take one glance and look away just as quickly, blushing all the way down my neck and into my chest. All I can think is, _How is he supposed to… fit?_

I can't look down, and I can't look in his eyes, so I look at my own hands, now resting on Peeta's shoulders. "I don't know how to do this," I admit.

One of his hands comes up to stroke my cheek. Comforting me, even now, when I can see the effect this is having on him in my peripheral vision. "You don't – " he begins, but I cut him off.

"You did it for me."

"Don't do this to pay a debt."

I startle at his sharp tone of voice, my eyes darting to his.

"Don't," he says again, more gently this time. "You don't owe me anything. Anything at all. I like touching you. It's not like it's a chore."

For the second time, I shiver. I remember what he's referring to all too well. That space between my thighs pulses hopefully and I sternly remind myself that tonight is about Peeta. Not me.

"I want to," I maintain. I can see Peeta's thoughts forming behind his eyes, rolling around in his mind, and I know that if I allow him to keep talking, he'll convince me to give up my cause. Sweet, altruistic Peeta. But then a thought hits me that has me withdrawing, flinching as if I've been stung. "Unless you don't want me to," I whisper.

It's so obvious, suddenly. Peeta's gentle insistence, his methods of distraction, his tense smiles. Of course he doesn't want me. Why would he? I myself admitted that I don't know what I'm doing, and besides, I'm far from desirable. Peeta and his golden heart will touch me, for my own benefit, but he cannot want me. The realization leaves a bitter taste in my throat.

"Katniss, what are you talking about?"

I shake my head. I won't cry, I won't cry, I _won't_ cry. Not again. Not over this.

"Katniss, please look at me."

Peeta is trying to drag my face up, but I won't look at him. I feel his long sigh against my cheek, and then his lips land at the corner of my mouth. He speaks against my skin in an almost-kiss. "You don't know how much I want you to," he breathes. "God, I want you to. I want _you_. But I don't…" He takes a shuddering breath. "I don't want you to feel obligated."

Abruptly, fire fills me. I can't tell if it's stubbornness, desire, frustration or some other emotion that guides me. All I know is that suddenly my hand is moving, and then there's hot, smooth skin against my palm and Peeta's noise of surprise is in my ear. His nose slides along my cheekbone and his head comes to rest beside mine, his body shaking. I go by feel, loosely wrapping my fingers around the shaft. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I can feel blood pulse in a vein. The skin is delicate, so delicate I'm afraid of hurting him, but the flesh beneath is firm and hot as flames.

"Help me," I request, and not a moment later, Peeta's large hand lands atop my small one. He tightens our grip, and I'm surprised at the amount of pressure we exert. Shouldn't this hurt? Apparently not. Judging by the soft bursts of breath at my ear, it's just the opposite. He begins to drag our hands upwards, towards the tip, and then back down. My knuckles bump against the skin of his stomach before our hands begin their journey up again. Steadily, under his guidance, we increase the speed, and Peeta's free hand digs into my waist. The pants at my ear are colored with short groans, and just as I think I've got the hang of it, Peeta lets go. I glance at him uncertainly. He nods encouragement and I carefully take up the rhythm by myself.

At the first pump of my small fist, I feel a shudder rise through Peeta's body. The grip he has on my waist is almost painful, but I find I don't care. His small cries of pleasure seem to shoot straight to my core, kindling a wet heat there. I feel powerful – beautiful. With a simple touch, I have control over him, and he doesn't fight. He hands himself over willingly, shaking and releasing my name in short syllables.

And then, accidentally, my hand rises too far and my thumb bumps over the weeping mushroom-cap head. Peeta's pants elongate into a low moan, and his hips rise and fall in a jerky motion. Cautiously, I repeat the action.

"Katniss," Peeta huffs, and the motion of his hips falls into a steady pulse. Up, down, up. It takes me a few tries, but I'm able to match my motions to it. My own hips are moving, too, circling in search of relief. I drop my head and begin planting small, sucking kisses up and down his throat, my tongue flicking out to taste him. Salt-sweat and spices and lavender. I imagine I would taste the same. We did, after all, share the same bathwater. For reasons beyond my comprehension, this thought sends a sharp pang through my breasts and between my thighs.

Without warning, Peeta's body tenses, sobs my name and then goes still. He grows soft under my palm and I quickly release him, cradling the back of his head as he regains composure.

The first move Peeta makes is to fish for his shirt, which he uses to sop up a pearly liquid I didn't notice before. He then balls up the shirt and tosses it aside before drawing me close. I rest my forehead on his damp, heaving chest, suddenly shy.

"I hope that was okay," I whisper.

Peeta gives a hoarse bark of laughter. "Okay?" Above me, I feel his head shake.

I burrow into his chest in embarrassment. "I know I'm not good at –"

"It was perfect." He pulls me up to face him. "You don't realize how wonderful you are, do you?"

I have no response for that, so I just gnaw on my lip and shrug.

After a few moments, Peeta finds his pants and pulls them back on, and we make our way bashfully up the stairs. I scrub my teeth and dive into bed in record time, and pretend to be asleep as Peeta emerges from the bathroom to join me so we don't have to talk about what happened. Before he settles down, Peeta presses a warm kiss to my temple and breathes, "Thank you."

As Peeta's breath evens out beside me, I bite my lower lip and press my thighs together, ignoring the throbbing that refuses to leave. My body cries out for attention, but I can't, I  _can't_  touch myself here, with Peeta pressed up against me, his arm looped over my waist. His grunts, groans, whispers of my name loop in my head, and I know I won't be able to sleep any time soon.

Outside, the wind wails shrilly, as if laughing at me. I stuff a pillow over my head to block it out, but I can still hear Peeta's voice echoing in my mind.


	5. Chapter Five

_I'm standing in the living room, and the curtains are flung wide open. Beyond the frosted panes is a forest of white-robed pines, the snow turned ruddy gold by a setting sun. The light fades more quickly than I thought possible as the sun descends into the lacy arms of the woods, like a lover giving itself over to its other half. Within moments, all that's left is the rosy glow behind the treetops, and I know that will soon be gone as well. Frost hisses under my palm when I press it to the glass, catching the last rays of light between my fingertips._

_"When will the sun come back?" I ask._

_"After lady night has had her way with the world."_

_I turn, and there stands Peeta, silhouetted gently against a fireplace that could swallow a mule. Flames drift within it, strangely calm, sending off waves of heat and honey-gold light, growing stronger as the light outside grows dimmer. His eyes seem to glow, gently, like the essence of the evening sky concentrated in two rings. I know without having to ask that my eyes are luminescent as well, though I imagine they'd be more like the silver of moonlight than the blue of evening._

_With a mournful glance at the thickening shadows, I sigh. "I don't like the night."_

_"But I do." Peeta is suddenly at my side, and he slips his arms around my waist. His fingers twine together just below my navel. "I love the night."_

_"Why?" I breathe. When I look down, I see my torso and legs, unrestrained by clothing and bathed in the rich light of the fire. Some part of me wants Peeta to be nude as well, and as soon as I wish it, the immediate warmth of bare skin slides against my back._

_His answer is a breath against my temple. "Because her footsteps are soft as the fall of a snowflake. Because her aim is always true. Because she's more dangerous and more beautiful than any light-dwelling creature I know, and because her voice can silence the very nightingale."_

_The words are poetic and soft and I don't know quite what they mean, but I don't have time to figure it out before the change comes. The world shifts and slides with a sigh, cool as an Autumn breeze. Beyond the wide window, the forest emerges in gauzy wisps of starlight. Above the tree line, a round moon shines proudly, ringed by a silvery halo, and all at once I see it. I see how the night, so many layers of blue and grey and deep, deep green, is beautiful. I hum softly in surprise and delight, and at the sound, Peeta lowers his mouth to the junction of my neck and shoulder. He nips at the delicate skin before smoothing away the sting with his tongue, and I lean back into him._

_"Do you see it?" his voice murmurs, though his lips never leave my skin. "How beautiful you are?"_

_I jump when I feel his hand slide over the patch of curls between my thighs and come to rest just shy of the aching flesh there._

_"Yes," I urge._

_Peeta's fingers slip between my folds, the entry made easy by my building arousal, and find that sensitive pebble that sends me arching back against his body. He works at it in small, lazy circles, his lips detaching from my neck to skim up the column of my throat. The muscles in my thighs begin to twitch. The room around us becomes indistinct as I close my eyes in contentment, and when they open again, I'm nestled in a bedroll of silky furs before the fire. Peeta cradles me to him, now positioned so that he can hold me against his chest, and I smile._

_The rhythm between my thighs grows quicker, pulsing against my most sensitive spot, and moans fall freely from my lips. "Oh," I sigh. "Oh. I like this."_

_"Good." Peeta kisses my mouth, sweetly, and suddenly I'm rolled onto my back, and I know what comes next. My knees fall apart in a silent plea, and Peeta beams at me, those softly glowing eyes reaching into my heart and touching the parts that were frozen._

_"I do love the day," I muse, and the kiss that Peeta places on my lips leaves me breathless._

* * *

 

 

Dim, white light reaches its watery fingers around the edges of the curtains, like the halo of light around an eclipse. I blink, confused. Where's the fireplace? Where's the window and the silver-frosted woods?

I feel Peeta's warm presence behind me. I'm tucked against him like a fox kit to its mother, seeking the safety of his arms, our legs twined together under the quilts. _Quilts._ We're in our bed. It takes me several seconds to realize that I was dreaming, and when I do, I turn my face into the pillow. Blood heats my cheeks as I remember the particulars of my mind's unconscious fantasy. The sunset. Day and night. Peeta…

My legs shift automatically and I feel the silky wetness between them, evidence of the dream that felt _so_ good. Maybe it's the earliness of the hour, or the drowsiness that still hangs about me like a comfortable fog, but I find myself wishing it had been real. I hold my hands to my cheeks to feel my fiery blush. _"Do you see it? How beautiful you are?"_

With a regretful shudder, I rip myself from the comfort of the bed. The air beyond the sheets is chilled and goose bumps prickle at my skin as I pad to the bathroom. When I look into the mirror, I half expect to see a light bruise forming where dream-Peeta suckled at my neck.

"Katniss?"

I jump guiltily and turn to see Peeta – the _real_ Peeta – half-sitting-up in bed, hair ruffled like a tangle of soft, pale gold. He frowns blearily at me, one hand scrubbing at his eyes. His voice is heavy and rough from sleep. "Wha's wrong?"

"Nothing," I say too quickly. I step away from the mirror. "Nothing. I was getting water."

Peeta's frown deepens and I know he's not buying it. He always was able to see right through me, now being no exception. "Nightmare?" he guesses.

"N-no," I stutter, "Just an… odd dream." This, at least, is true.

I shift my weight subtly, weighing my options, and then stride towards the bed. It's too cold a morning to go down the stairs and begin the day. Dream or no, my body is greedy for the warmth and softness of the blankets, and there's nothing much to do downstairs anyway. I wriggle into the space I occupied until just moments ago, settling into the nest of bedding we created in the night. As I draw the blankets over myself, the scent of lavender and soap and clean skin washes over me, intensified by our combined body heat. My chest rises and falls in an involuntary, shivering sigh. Peeta drapes an arm over my waist and a breath puffs at the nape of my neck, and I know he's smelling my hair.

"Want to talk about it?" he asks.

"No," I answer, and a fresh wave of heat surges into my cheeks. "No. It's okay. Go back to sleep."

But Peeta is already moving. He twists to peer at the clock on the bedside table, then groans and flops back down. In a moment, he's swinging his legs – leg – over the side of the bed, pulling himself from me. I give a grumpy whine of protest, tangling my fingers in his pajama shirt.

"Do you have to get up?" I ask, miffed.

Though I can't see it, I hear the metallic sounds of Peeta's prosthetic as he leans down and fishes it from the ground. "Won't get much done today otherwise," is his muffled response. He straightens, leg in hand, and props the stump of his left leg on his right knee to clasp it on.

"Who cares?" My fingers are still clenched in the fabric of his shirt. I shift towards him to get a better grip.

Peeta turns, amusement in his eyes, and says, "Do you want breakfast or don't you?"

I let go.

He laughs and stands, fully taking himself and his warmth away from me. I burrow myself further into the blankets, huffing out an impatient sigh to show that I'm still not content with the situation.

Peeta, ignoring my sigh, begins to stretch. He links his fingers together and twists his arms over his head, arching his back, before bowing forward with a low grunt. Immediately, I'm thrown back to last night, in front of the fireplace. I remember how his body shook against mine. I remember how my name sounded falling from his lips. I remember each and every noise he made, and I remember my dream. I dive under the blankets to hide my face, mortified at the wet heat that has rekindled between my legs. I should _not_ be thinking about this, and I certainly shouldn't have this type of reaction to simple memories. I'm no better than a slag heap slut.

"Come down when you're ready," I hear Peeta say from near the door.

"Mmm-hmm," I manage, hoping the squeak sounds halfway affirmative.

I hear his footsteps pause, and my breath catches in my throat, but then he's gone, stomping down the stairs towards the kitchen.

It takes me several minutes before I convince myself to crawl out of bed and flee to the safety of the bathroom, where I can splash my face with cold water in peace.

* * *

 

When I come down for breakfast, wrapped up in my thickest sweater, I bolt down my portion of porridge so quickly I burn my tongue. Peeta tries to engage me in conversation, but I give one-word answers and keep my eyes on my spoon, and after a few minutes he falls silent. Guilt twinges in my gut for shutting him out, especially after… after… after _everything_ , but I can't look him in the eye. If I do, I feel as if the hungry beast in my veins will come howling out, and I don't know what would happen after that. As if to taunt me, dream-Peeta's words flit uninvited through my mind. _"I love the night."_ Under the table, my thighs press together and I grit my teeth. I can feel Peeta peering curiously at me from across the table, but I don't look up. After a moment, he goes back to his breakfast.

I spend my day avoiding Peeta. It's not easy, considering both of us are trapped in the same house, but I find ways. When he retreats to his painting room, I stay downstairs, limping back and forth in the kitchen. My heel still throbs with every step. I didn't think to put on shoes, and the worn boards beneath my feet are stiff with cold. The chill seeps up through the soles of my stockings like insubstantial icy water and I look towards the living room, where plush, decadent carpet softens the floor. The curtains are drawn tight and muffled by extra bath towels – our best attempt at keeping the cold out and the heat in. I shuffle through the doorway and stare at the curtains, certain that if I pulled them aside, I would see a white-swathed pine wood glittering with starlight.

I give myself a brusque shake. This stuffy air must be getting to me.

I curl into a tiny ball in the corner of the couch, surrounding myself with blankets and pillows to fill the rest of the seemingly vast space, and try to read. I take no less than five books off the shelf, flipping through them and putting them back without reading so much as a chapter. I just can't seem to sit still. I wipe dust off shelves and wash dishes in the cold tap water until my hands are shaking and dry. I make myself a lunch of day-old toast and jam and eat it in front of the stove, then climb the stairs just as Peeta descends them. He reaches for me as we pass each other, but I keep walking. I can't face him yet.

The day drags on until sunset, when I climb all the way into the drafty attic with the excuse of looking for something to do. This is partly true. Avoiding Peeta is both difficult and painfully dull. Normally, we would spend the day together. I would curl up in the chair in the corner of his painting room and watch him paint. We would make lunch together and curl up together on the couch, reading or talking or napping. We would try the phones again and call Doctor Aurelius or Haymitch if the phone lines were up. This has been our routine since the storm began. But now, as I find myself unable to face him, I've broken that routine.

I know exactly what Doctor Aurelius would say. _"It's normal to be hesitant, Katniss. But you shouldn't shut out your emotions. If you need to have some time to yourself, that's all right, but just remember that you need to talk to him about this eventually."_

It's scary how he's worked his way into my head to the point where I don't even need to call him to get his advice.

The attic is damp and freezing, and I'm beginning to regret ever coming up here. There's nothing exciting or interesting. Just a maze of boxes, most of them falling apart and half-empty. One contains some ridiculous Capitol wigs, gray with dust. Another is overflowing with pointy shoes. In the corner, a spinning wheel, one leg splintered, leans against the wall. It reminds me of the hiding places I used to seek out in District Thirteen. Storage closets and abandoned living quarters and forgotten corners. In fact, it's a lot like my hiding places. Too much like them.

I'm backing up before I realize where my legs are taking me, fumbling for the stairs, hoping I can get out before I lapse into another panic attack. That can't happen here. Not while Peeta is two levels away, where he wouldn't hear my calls for help. I don't know if I could get through an attack without him here to hold me. The backs of my calves collide painfully with a hard edge and I go down hard, landing on my back. Pain shoots up my leg as my heel is jostled. My hands reach out, grasping at the air, and my fingers close over a corner of cardboard. After a moment, it gives, and a box comes tumbling down onto my stomach. I give a small gasp and roll over, instinctually curling into myself until the initial pain fades. I'm sure I'll have bruises within hours.

Cursing, I sit up. The box I pulled down on myself was full of books. The cardboard side is ripped open, tomes spilling out onto the grimy floor. One lies open over my thigh, pages crumpled against my trouser leg. I pick it up and the cover falls shut, flashing gold lettering: _HUMAN ANATOMY, VOLUME 3_. I give an angry huff and toss it over my shoulder, where I can hear it bounce down the stairs and land with a papery crunch.

Peeta's voice floats up to me from downstairs. Apparently he did hear me, after all. "Katniss? What was that?"

I curse again and pull myself up, kicking books aside. Now that I'm moving, I can confirm my suspicions of a bruises forming on my back. If I'm not mistaken, I'll have several on my stomach and thighs, too. I kick again, successfully stubbing my toe on a dictionary.

Peeta calls again. "Katniss?"

"I'm fine!" I holler impatiently. "Just books falling!"

I descend from the attic and slam shut the door, impulsively snatching up the book of anatomy. Maybe I can toss it in a fireplace. That, at least, would be entertaining and satisfying. I'm about to enter the bedroom and get the fireplace going when Peeta stomps up the stairs, scrubbing a paintbrush off on a rag. His hands are stained with red, and multicolored specks of paint dot his arms. My traitorous mind flashes to those arms holding me to his chest, cradling me under the quilts.

Our eyes meet for a heartbeat before I duck my head and limp through the bedroom doorway. His footsteps clunk after me.

"Hey," he says.

I nod in response, poking at the cooling embers from this afternoon's fire.

I feel him before I see him, settling down next to me, his warm, solid presence forming a wall at my side. I want to lean into him. I don't.

"Hey," he says again, more insistently.

"Mmm?"

"What's wrong?" He nudges my shoulder with his own. "Huh? You've been real quiet today."

"I have?"

His tone is half exasperated, half gentle. "Katniss. You know you have."

I drag the tinderbox towards me and start flicking pieces into the belly of the fireplace in silence, relying on the heat of the embers to ignite them. Only when a teepee of nicely catching sticks is casting pale, dancing tongues of light on the hearth do I glance up. I'm startled by what I find in his eyes.

"Do you…" he begins, those blue eyes dimmed with something I can't name. He shifts, stretching his bad leg out in front of him. "Do you regret…?"

I don't need to ask what he means. I know. I know all too well, with his body so close to mine, warming me just as much as the little fire. "No. I don't regret it."

A breath spills from his lips, stirring the escaped strands of my hair. His hand slides across the space between us and he gathers my small, chilled hand in his large, warm ones. I toss aside the book and he accepts my other hand, squeezing my fingers and gently massaging the warmth back into them.

"Then why are you upset with me?"

I flinch guiltily. "I-I'm not…" I trail off at the eyebrow he quirks at me, beginning again with, "It's not you. I just…"

"Was it your nightmare?" he probes, gently. His thumbs press into the soft spots in the center of my palms and I have to stifle a groan. His touches are distracting. All I can think is, if his hands feel so good on my own, what would it be like to have them on other parts of me? Touching my breasts again, or… between my legs again. I shiver.

I think I've blushed three shades past scarlet, but I manage to answer, "Yes. No. Kind of. I don't know."

He makes a small noise of concern in the back of his throat. His hands move up, slipping over my wrists and along my arms. They come to rest where my neck meets my shoulders and he presses down, rubbing, gradually working at the muscles there. A soft sort of heat spreads from where his hands work at me, blooming in my shoulders and back, and I lean towards him automatically. My inhibitions are quickly slipping away under his touch, and I can't stop myself from nuzzling at his cheek. That hungry beast in my blood is baying for more, for _him,_ and at this moment I need his arms around me more than I need solitude.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" he asks quietly. His hands momentarily lift from my shoulders, but return immediately at my sound of protest.

I think back on the dream, and this time, I'm filled with longing instead of shame. Maybe it's Peeta's hands, still patiently massaging the tension out of my neck and shoulders, or maybe it's the lingering tension in my veins, the kind that can't be relieved with a simple massage.

"There was a forest," I recall, speaking into the collar of his sweater. "Outside our window. And it was sunset."

He says nothing, but indicates for me to go on with a nod which bobs against the crown of my head.

"You said," I say, then reconsider and change the course of my sentence at lightning speed. "You were there."

His hands still. His voice is strained when he asks, "I said what?" When I don't answer, he lifts my chin so I have to look him in the eye. The look on his face is nearing desperation. "Katniss, please tell me. If it's something I said in a flashback, you know I don't… I didn't mean… Oh, Katniss, I'm so sorry. No wonder you didn't want to be around me today –"

I shut him up with a quick kiss – one of my oldest tactics, when it comes to him – and pull away shaking my head firmly. "No. It wasn't a flashback. It wasn't bad. In the dream, you said… something nice." I still can't bring myself to repeat dream-Peeta's words.

_"Because her footsteps are soft as the fall of a snowflake. Because her aim is always true. Because she's more dangerous and more beautiful than any light-dwelling creature I know, and because her voice can silence the very nightingale. Do you see it? How beautiful you are?"_

He's looking at me skeptically, and I know it must have something to do with my reddened cheeks. The little fire hisses and I turn back to it, prodding at it with a charred stick. I can see the remains of an orange peel, blackened around the edges, at the corner. This is Peeta's doing. He often scents the hearths. Orange peel, small bits of rags soaked in vanilla, dried petals, pine branches, herbs, anything he can find. Just like the paintings, like my rabbit pelts sewn into pillows, this is a way to make our house into a home. Now, I can still smell the tang of orange hanging in the air, and it blends with the drowsy heat of Peeta's hands on my shoulders. My thoughts are already beginning to fog from the heady mixture.

Peeta shifts his hands up the slightest bit, massaging the base of my neck, and I crumble. A day without his voice, his touch, has left me deprived, and now I soak up his attentions like moss absorbs rain. I can't help it. I don't know if I want to.

The scent of wood smoke and orange is overpowered by the scent of Peeta. Honey. Soap flakes. Cinnamon. He draws me closer, using his grip on my neck and shoulders as a point of leverage, and my eyes flick up to meet his. The blue irises are dark with tension. He's still worried, and I think I can help with that.

Like the fire in the hearth, the embers within me are easily reignited. All I have to do is close the small distance between us and brush my lips across his. Peeta tips his head to deepen the kiss, accepting it with a sigh of approval. His tongue laps out shyly to taste my lower lip and immediately, the hunger in me lunges to the surface, boiling in my lower belly and sending my pulse throbbing in my fingertips. I was stupid to think I could avoid this. My body has been strung tight ever since I woke up – since last night, if I'm being honest with myself. As shameful as it is, I haven't stopped wanting Peeta since he let me touch him, and distancing myself seems to have made it worse. My blood pounds through me, rising to the surface of my skin in a hot blood-blush.

Peeta tugs his head back just far enough to murmur my name against my lips. He breathes it out in a shaky sigh and his hands climb into my hair, cradling my head as he presses his lips to mine again, again, again.

"I missed you today," he says, and guilt pinches at my insides. He tugs lightly at my hair, the way he knows I like. My scalp tingles pleasantly under his fingers. "Why were you avoiding me?"

I open my mouth, but he stops me.

"Tell me the truth, Katniss. If you don't regret us being together, then what?"

I can hear the pain in his voice, and it makes me want to wrap my arms around him, to hold him and never, ever let anyone hurt him again. But I was the one that hurt him, this time. And I can only think of one way to undo the damage I did. I have to tell him.

I play with the collar of his shirt, nerves making my hands tremble, and whisper, "I've wanted you all day, Peeta."

He goes still, and a shudder hits me unexpectedly. I swallow and rush on, "I shouldn't have shut you out, and I'm sorry, but… but I…"

My voice is shaking now. He isn't saying anything. He isn't even moving. Why isn't he saying anything?

I swallow and try again. "I couldn't…"

Finally, he moves. He tilts my head toward him, and I stare at his shirt, refusing, yet again, to meet his gaze. When at last I look up, I expect to find anger, maybe even disgust for my selfish behavior. Instead, his eyes search mine with a curious mix of wonder and… desire? No. It can't be. I'm no better than a slut.

"You mean," he says slowly, "That you avoided me because you… wanted me?"

I bob my head in a semblance of a nod, blinking fast to ward off tears of shame. It's times like these when I most hate how weak I've become. How easily my emotions swing from one extreme to the other.

"Katniss," Peeta says, and the word is exhaled quickly in a half-laugh. He kisses me again, and that gets my attention. Isn't he mad at me? Isn't he disgusted by me? He pulls away and looks me in the eyes. "You can have me whenever you want."

My breath is caught in my throat, and I can't seem to form any words in my mind, much less on my lips. All I can do is stare as he tucks a piece of hair back from my face.

"And, for the record," he says, a playful glint in his eye, "I wanted you all day, too."

The breath that was balled up in my throat now escapes in a breathy whisper. "You did?"

His lips curve up in that boyish smile that is so uniquely _Peeta_. "I always have. Always will. I just can't seem to escape you."

Before I can puzzle out his last statement, he's gathering me into his arms, lifting me up and turning towards the bed. I glance nervously towards the door as he sets me down atop the quilts. Though no one else is in the house, and no one is likely to enter any time soon, the open doorway doesn't sit right with me. I worry my lower lip between my teeth, wondering if I can slip off the bed and close it without Peeta noticing.

As it turns out, I don't need to. He must have seen my glance, because a moment later Peeta strides to the door and swings it firmly shut, closing us into a room of dim white light from behind the curtains mixing with the quickly growing flames. The two opposing kinds of light leave all manner of shadows about the room, swathing us in a sort of comforting gray haze. I relax back into the mattress. It's funny how much safer one closed door can make you feel.

Peeta returns, unceremoniously tugging off his sweater as he does so. It falls to the floor in a heap as he climbs onto the bed, settling over me without hesitation. He strokes my cheek with a thumb, calming me, while his other hand goes to the hem of my own sweater. "Can I take this off?"

I nod and sit halfway up, allowing him to pull first my sweater, then my shirt over my head. As I lay back down, he draws the blankets over us, cocooning us in a nest of delicious warmth and the smell of both of us combined. This, more than my exposed skin, makes me flush. His weight is a welcome presence, pushing me down into the mattress and holding me secure in a cage of limbs, and my center is already moist and aching, my body crying out for attention. Peeta lowers his mouth to my throat, his tongue darting out to taste my pulse, and I give a small noise of contentment. My hands move by themselves, unhooking the fastenings of my bra and letting it fall away somewhere under the blankets. The peaks of my breasts are taut without even being touched, panging with an intense need. A little gasp sucks past my lips and my fingers lace through his curls, carefully guiding him downward. Peeta needs no further encouragement to take one nipple in his mouth and suck strongly, earning him a low moan.

He supports himself on one forearm, using the other hand to work at the button of my trousers. His mouth never stops working at my breasts, one after the other, and after a few moments he succeeds in undoing the button. He slowly slides the zipper down, and his eyes open, gazing up at me without ceasing his attentions. As our eyes meet, the pleasure mounts suddenly, shooting from my breasts down between my legs. A question lingers in his eyes, even as his tongue dabs at the hardened tip of my breast, and another moan escapes me as I nod desperately.

My hips lift so that he can pull my trousers down my legs, and his mouth leaves me as he slides them over my feet.  Another glance and a nod is all it takes for my underwear to be removed, too. I'm so tight-strung that I don't feel the embarrassment I expected. Peeta's mouth returns briefly to mine, nipping at my lips, before dropping to my chest. Pleasure blooms within me, extending through my breasts and between my thighs in exquisite tendrils. My legs move restlessly, thighs squeezing together and then opening, fluttering like the wings of a butterfly, as the slippery heat at the apex of my thighs swells to an unbearable throbbing. My hips swivel in search of relief, and they find Peeta's thigh. Without quite meaning to, I arch, pressing myself against him, and a choked moan falls from his lips. My legs brush against the fabric of his pants, and I frown. I want to feel him against me, without the impeding layers of cloth. My hands find the hem of his shirt and he doesn't resist as I pull it over his head. I then turn my attention to the button of his own pants, but his hands catch my own, stopping me.

"Katniss," he says, his voice husky. "If there's nothing between us… I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself."

"Stop?" I ask. "Why?"

His gaze suddenly turns serious. "I don't think we're quite ready for that."

It takes me a moment to understand, and when I do, I let out a squeak and hide my face in his shoulder. "No," I agree quietly. "No, I don't think we're ready for – for _that_ either. But I want to feel you."

He hesitates, and I can almost see the thoughts flitting by behind his eyes. Then, deliberately, he unhooks the button of his pants and kicks them off. His boxers remain in place, though I can clearly feel his hardness poking into my upper thigh.

"This too," I say, curling me legs around the cool metal and plastic of his prosthetic. He gives me a questioning look and I say, "I want you to be comfortable."

For a moment, I think I see a tear glimmering in his eye, but then he's kissing me with an intensity to steal the breath from my lungs. He pulls away and sits up momentarily to unhook the prosthetic from his flesh and roll down the sock before discarding both and climbing back next to me. I rub my legs gently over the stub and he sighs, settling over me again. I can still feel his manhood against me.

 Suddenly bold, I flash an impish smile up at him, lifting my hips again to press against him. He shifts at the last moment and I end up pushing my hips into his. I give a shuddering gasp as our most private places touch, albeit separated by a layer of cloth, and pleasure strikes me like a lightning bolt. I try it again, rocking my hips forward, and groan as his covered shaft slides along my slit. It takes all my willpower to draw away. Like Peeta, I do not trust myself to stop if we continue down this path. _Not yet,_ I tell myself firmly, wondering when it became inevitable.

Peeta takes my face in his hands to kiss me, drawing away only briefly to suck in a lungful of air.

I don't realize that Peeta's hand is moving until it comes to rest on my stomach, fingers splaying over the skin below my belly button. I shiver and nod against his lips, answering his unasked question. His fingers skim over the patch of dark curls before coming to rest over my slit, then pause, and I give a weak sound of protest. Why is he stopping?

Peeta's lips slip free of mine and he rests his forehead against mine. "Katniss?"

"Peeta," I answer weakly. The flesh between my legs is hot as flames and pulsing with need, and my legs are moving again, searching futilely for friction. My breath comes in gasps.

His hand creeps closer, teasing me endlessly with its nearness but never going where I want it – where I need it. For this has become a _need_ , something vital to my survival, like food or water. I've never craved anything so much as I crave this sweet boy and his touch. But he refuses to give it to me.

"You want this. Real or not real?"

Then I understand. Peeta wants to hear me say it. He wants to know that I truly desire this – desire him. He needs to know it's –

"Real. So real."

The air under the blankets is thick and moist with our breath, and I let my head fall to the side, sucking at the cool air from outside our little nest. Peeta begins to move down the bed, resituating himself, and my body thrums with anticipation. What is he waiting for? But then, when he doesn't _stop_ moving, I grasp at his shoulders. He looks up at me, his eyes seeming to glow in the shadows under the blankets.

"Wait," I gasp. "What are –?"

Peeta's free hand goes to stroke the outside of my thigh, carefully tracing the warped shape of a burn scar. "Please trust me, Katniss."

I let go of his shoulders hesitantly, nervousness now turning me palms damp and sending butterflies through my stomach. He doesn't give me much time to dwell on my nerves, though, because then his fingers finally descend into my slit. This time, he locates that pearl of pleasure immediately, circling it lightly with a fingertip. The sweet, ticklish pleasure builds from that point of sensitivity and I feel myself growing even slicker, my juices building up until I'm sure Peeta's hand is all but soaked. I should be embarrassed, but I can't. It's impossible to feel anything besides the pleasure expanding in me, extending up my spine.

Sometime in the past minute I must have shut my eyes because now I open them. I catch my breath at the sight of Peeta, working me towards ecstasy with one hand and gazing reverently at my exposed flesh. My mouth falls open, but I find I'm not uncomfortable under his scrutiny. The way he looks at me somehow heightens the pleasure I feel. Instead of being embarrassed, I feel desirable. I'm completely open to him, and I feel as if he can see into my very soul, but it's a good feeling. Peeta licks his lips and glances up at me, catching my eyes. He smiles. I manage to smile back.

"Get up here," I whisper, and he pushes himself up the bed, never ceasing the exquisite caresses between my legs. I whimper in pleasure as he takes first one, then the other nipple in his mouth on his way to my lips. When he kisses me, my own hands find their way between us. I slip my fingers under the waistband of Peeta's boxers and he hisses, drawing back an inch.

"I won't take them off," I promise, sliding my hand into the undergarment. "I just want to touch you. Can I?"

Peeta is already nodding, his hips dipping towards my hand. "Yes," he pleads, and a dizzying wave of power goes through me. I gently grip his member, reacquainting myself with the shape and feel of him, and he slumps against me momentarily. His own fingers have slowed, and he pants at my shoulder as I cautiously increase the pressure of my hand, trying desperately to remember exactly how to do this.

"Wait," Peeta says, and I freeze.

His fingers slip away from me and my core aches in loss. He gently tugs my hand away from him, and I'm wondering what I did wrong when he guides my fingers to my opening, coating them in my own fluids. I moan at the feel of our fingers pleasuring me in sync, and Peeta takes this as a sign to bring two of my fingers to my pearl and gently manipulate them. I can't stop a second, louder moan, and Peeta kisses my neck. When my hand is sufficiently coated in my slippery juices, he releases it.

I look at him, confused, as I cautiously grip him again. At the first touch of my dampened palm, he groans, thrusting once into my hand.

"It's – better with moisture," he gets out, in response to my questioning glance.

As I work at him, stroking him from top to bottom like I learned last night, he begins to pleasure me at the same time. It's a little awkward, at first, both of us trying to move in the same space, but it feels too good to care. He spreads the folds of my femininity with his fingers, as carefully as if he was opening a flower, and dips his thumb a little ways into my opening. He then uses his thumb to press down on my pearl, grinding it in circles, and I give a full-throated moan. I rub my own thumb across the head of him, eliciting a moan of his own. He taps that bundle of nerves until I'm writhing and I give him a small squeeze that earns me a groan. We feed off each others' noises of pleasure, climbing and climbing until hips snap and sweat-slick skin seems to fuse into one.

Peeta finishes without warning, shuddering through his climax with an exhalation of my name. He goes limp for a number of seconds, crushing me into the mattress, before peppering my face with kisses and attacking my most sensitive parts with vigor. I can barely keep up with him as he suckles at the puckered tips of my breasts, working my bundle of nerves in small, quick circles, pumping his long middle finger up into my soaked depths. All I can do is fist my hands in the blankets and moan his name. My chest heaves and my muscles twitch and _dear god that feels good_.

"Peeta," I keen. "Peeta, please, _please_ …"

He swallows my moans in an ardent kiss, his tongue pushing against mine, asserting dominance. His thumb continues to grind tiny, frantic circles at my most sensitive point and his finger thrusts into me, soon joined by a second, and my walls begin to feel stretched in a way that's wonderful. Pleasure coils in my belly, crackling up my spine and trembling in my upper thighs. I know I'm about to break, to shatter, because nothing can possibly feel better than this, when –

Peeta crooks his fingers inside me in a sort of "come here" gesture and my world detonates. His fingers press into a soft spot within me and it produces a pleasure so intense, combined with his thumb on my pearl, that I let out something close to a scream. Pleasure reverberates through me, blocking out all other sensation, and my back arches so suddenly I think it might break, but I don't care.

When I finally come down, panting heavily and trembling and weak, Peeta is sucking at his fingers. It takes me a moment to realize that he's sucking my juices off them, and I let out a small squeak.

"Peeta! What –?" I sputter. "That cannot taste good!"

He grins. "On the contrary. You taste _wonderful_."

I don't have the energy to argue. All I can do is close my eyes and melt into his embrace as he pulls me into his arms. He speaks into my hair, his words so quiet I almost don't hear him.

"I'd like to taste you more fully sometime."

"Huh?" I ask, sure I misheard.

"Nothing." He changes the subject. "That was amazing."

I nod absently, already slipping towards sleep, when something occurs to me. I force my jelly-like muscles to sit up. "You, um," I begin, unsure how to phrase what I'm about to ask. "You seemed… awfully sure of yourself."

Peeta grins again, his eyes sparkling. It's all the answer I need.

"You've done that before," I say flatly. I shouldn't be disappointed. I'm _not_ disappointed. Who am I to care if Peeta has been with other girls? I don't care. I don't.

"Just a few days ago, in fact," he quips, and I shake my head.

"With someone else."

The smile falls abruptly from his face. "No. Katniss, no." He sits up, too, leaning forward to take my face between his hands. "I've never been with anyone but you. I've never wanted anyone but you."

I can't help but look at him disbelievingly. "Well, you seemed to know what you were doing."

"Thanks for the ego boost," he says dryly. "I had older brothers. This is the first time I've ever been glad for how much they talked about their, ah, experiences."

I flush in shame for what must be the hundredth time today. "Oh." The word opens into a yawn and I turn my face into his shoulder.

He chuckles, tucking me against him. "Let's get some sleep."

I agree wordlessly, and between our toasty blanket-nest and my exhausted muscles, sleep comes easily.

* * *

 

I wake suddenly. It only takes me a moment to become aware of Peeta, huddled at the other side of the bed, hands clamped over his ears. A flashback.

In a heartbeat, I'm there, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Peeta?" I say gently. The dying fire gives just enough light for me to make out his eyes, screwed shut against whatever demons are torturing him. "Peeta?"

His eyes open and he slowly focuses on me. "Katniss," he hisses. "Go. You can't be here."

"I'm not leaving you," I say, trying to sound as calm as possible. "You'll be fine. You just need to breathe."

His head jerks erratically from side to side. "I can't," he gasps. "I can't, I – Katniss, you need to get out of here – don't want to – hurt you –" He cuts off with a pained groan and curls into himself, rocking back and forth. His hands claw at his head and I try to pull them away, so he can't hurt himself, but in a flash he's taken a hold of my wrists. He holds them so tightly that I have to stifle a cry of pain.

"Leave," he groans again, the grip on my wrists growing tighter still. I don't bother pointing out that leaving isn't an option, what with his death grip.

"I'm not going anywhere," I say, then, "Shh. Peeta. Peeta, please listen to me. It's okay. It's not real. Not real."

Slowly, his breath begins to even out. His grip on me loosens, and at last he releases me. I immediately rub my wrists, hissing at the tenderness. Peeta gives himself several shakes, gradually coming back to himself, then rubs his palms over his eyes and looks at me.

"Katniss," he says vaguely. Then recognition comes into his eyes. "Katniss!" He grabs me, holding me by my sides, and I cry out. The bruises from my fall in the attic are making themselves known.

Peeta's eyes widen in horror, and it's then that I realize that I'm still completely naked. Not only do I have bruises from my fall, but Peeta can see each and every one of them. They line my stomach and side, blossoming in a painful rainbow of colors. Plum-sized bruises dot my thighs, where the books hit, and I'm sure I have a nice-sized blotch on my back from where I fell. But I never told Peeta about falling, or pulling the box down on myself.

"Peeta –" I start, but he's already pulling away.

"No," he whispers, still staring at my just-forming bruises and red wrists. "No, no, please no…"

"Peeta," I try again, "This isn't what it looks like. It wasn't you. I fell."

It even sounds like a lie to my ears, though I know it's the truth.

Peeta tries to stand, but he never put his prosthetic back on. He sways dangerously until I grab his arm and pull him back down. He scoots frantically away from me, staring at his hands as if they're smeared with blood and not paint stains. _Paint stains._ When Peeta came up the stairs, his hands were dyed with red paint. They still are.

"Oh, my god," he whispers. "Oh, my god, please no. Please…"

He's reached the end of the bed, and I corner him there, taking his face firmly between my hands. "Listen to me," I order. "You did not do this." I gesture to my bruised stomach. "I was in the attic and I tripped and fell and a box of books fell on me. That's what these bruises are from. I forgot to tell you because then we came in here and I… was distracted."

But Peeta is still looking at his hands. His whole body trembles, and a sob makes his form heave. "I'm so sorry," he chokes. "You should leave. I can't – I can't control –"

I lean forward and press my lips against his. It's the one tactic I know will work. Even in the Capitol, when Peeta's demons were strongest and we were surrounded by death and gun smoke, it worked. And I am determined that it will work now. I pull away, panting for breath, only to dive back in. I suck his lower lip between my own and worry at it with my teeth, then touch my tongue gently against his. Slowly, his arms come up to curl around me. He begins meeting my tongue with his own.

When I absolutely have to pull away or risk asphyxiation, I command, "Stay with me."

His response is quiet, but immediate. "Always."

I look him in the eyes, searching the swollen pupils. "You asked me to trust you today," I say. "Now you have to trust me."

He blinks, slowly, returning my stare. It's then that I realize that his pupils are still dilated. That only ever happens when he's in the midst of a flashback – when "mutt Peeta" comes out, as he would put it. That's what he calls himself when he's in one of his rages. "Mutt Peeta". But he can't be mutt Peeta now, when he's so calm.

He speaks suddenly. "Trust?"

I startle at his voice. It's cool and controlled, yet somehow twisted with a strange edge. The last time I heard that voice was in the hospital room of Thirteen when he snapped and snarled at me like the mutt he accused me of being.

I look at him. "Peeta?" I ask.

He looks back, staring at me with those unnaturally large pupils eclipsing the blue, and then, slowly, he shakes his head.


	6. Chapter Six

_Who are you?_ I think, my body stiff with confusion and shock.

Peeta's pupils are dilated. I've only ever seen that happen when "mutt Peeta" comes out. But he can't be Mutt Peeta right now. He can't. He's not trying to hurt me. He seems calm, he seems –

"Katniss."

My name is strange on his lips. It's not a question, nor fully a statement. It's as if he's trying it out. Seeing how the word tastes on his tongue.

I stare at him, because it's all I can think to do."Peeta?" I say again, and again he shakes his head.

"No," he says in that odd, calm-yet-twisted voice.

But if he's not Peeta…

"Who are you?" I say, at last giving voice to the thought that has been dancing in my head for the past minute.

He stares at me and those eyes, those dark eyes, reflect the flicker of firelight. His gaze is the opposite of the Peeta I know. Peeta always looks at me with a softness, a gentleness, a sort of affectionate admiration. I've come to know that look very well in the past years, though I only recently discovered what it meant. Now, his eyes convey something very different. They are cool. Calculating. They wander over my naked torso, mapping every inch of me, and I gather a sheet over my chest with a shiver.

Then he speaks. "I don't know."

It takes me a moment to connect the answer with my question.

"W-what do you mean?" I stammer.

He blinks at me, and then looks around the room. I gather the sheet more tightly around myself and realize that my hands and shaking badly, sweat dampening my palms. The way he moves… the way he looks at me triggers memories that pound in my skull.

His hands locking around my neck. His thumbs jammed firmly into my throat, crushing the delicate airway within. His body strapped to a cot as he spits insults at me. Pain, fear, sorrow; all of these things are connected to _him._

Mutt Peeta – for that is unquestionably who he is, now – finally looks back to me, and I flinch under his obsidian gaze. My chest aches and seizes with the frantic flutter of my heart. Phantom fingers squeeze around my throat and I rip my eyes away from his.

I have to run. _Now._

I bolt from the bed, my feet hitting the ground hard enough to sting, and I run. The sheet tangles in my legs, slowing my significantly, and I stumble just before I reach the door. I throw out a hand to catch myself and my palm smacks into the doorknob. It gives with a groan and then I'm free, dashing into the cold hallway and making for the stairs.

But where do I go? Outside's no good. I'd get lost and freeze to death in the blizzard, and even if I made it to another house, I don't have a key to unlock the front door. And there aren't many places in the house to hide.

I hear fumbling coming from the bedroom. The soft noises of cloth against cloth, and then the unmistakable metallic twangs of Peeta's prosthetic being reattached. Then footsteps, heavy but unhurried. Mutt Peeta isn't running after me. He doesn't need to. There is nowhere for me to go. He has all the time in the world, and he knows it.

I often identify myself as a hunter, but in this moment, I can truly understand the terror felt by my prey.

I find myself stumbling down the stairs, my tread clumsy with adrenaline. I skid into the kitchen, the sheet fluttering around me like voluminous dress, snarling around my ankles and flapping at my arms. I give a sob and try to kick it away. It falls halfway down my body and I trip, falling hard on the kitchen floor. My body curls into itself instinctually, rocking back and forth as my heel twinges sharply. The bruises on my torso cry out and a muffled groan slips between my teeth.

I can hear him coming down the stairs, now, and I force myself to uncurl and crawl towards the pantry. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is whispering that if I just hide, if I fold myself behind Peeta's stacks of flour bags and shut the door, that _he'll_ go away. _He'll_ leave me alone. I'll be safe for the night, and when the sun rises his pupils will shrink and his smile will return and he'll be my Peeta again.

I reach the doorway of the pantry just as Mutt Peeta strides into the kitchen. He crosses the room in three steps and then there's an arm under my stomach, yanking me upright. I shriek, writhing, and his grip grows tighter. The pressure on my bruises makes me gasp with pain.

"Let me go!" I plead.

And to my surprise, he does.

I land back on the floor with a _thump_ – how many more times will I fall on my back today, I wonder? – and I scurry backwards. The sheet fell somewhere in the kitchen during my brief struggles, and the air is like a cold mist against my skin. I tumble behind Peeta's stack of flour bags and make myself as small as possible, watching Mutt Peeta from behind my arms.

"You're going to have to stop running away from me eventually," he states, settling down cross-legged on the other side of the flour bags. He's wearing a pair of boxers, now, but nothing else, and goose bumps rise on his arms.

I glare at him. My mind casts about for an escape route. Can I take him by surprise? Dash past him, back out into the kitchen? I'd be no better off than before.

"Ignoring me?" he says after a few moments.

I stare pointedly into space.

Mutt Peeta sighs – a gesture so unusual, coming from _him_ , that it gives me pause. I glance at him, then immediately chastise myself. _It's not him,_ I chant silently, _It's not Peeta. He said it himself. It's not him._

There's a rustling, and then a crumpled ball of fabric lands a few feet from me. The sheet. I snatch it up and wrap it snugly around myself with a small sigh of my own. The flimsy length of linen isn't much, but at least it covers me, offers some protection from the dull, penetrating cold of the kitchen. Somehow, it makes me brave.

I face Mutt Peeta, my hands fisted in the material at my throat, keeping it in place. "Who are you?" I ask, hating the tremble in my voice.

He glowers at me in irritation. "I thought we already established that I don't know," he snaps.

I draw back, wary of his tone. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I'm –" He stops, his brows sinking. "I'm –" His head swings back and forth in a defeated motion and he lets out a breath. "I'm… not Peeta. I mean, I'm part of him."

I stare at him uncomprehendingly. "Funny, you look a lot like him," I say, deadpan.

My pulse is beginning to slow. I'm still painfully aware of _his_ presence, but I can no longer feel my heart jumping in my chest. The adrenaline is beginning to wear off, and as it wanes the pain in my heel grows. I shift, trying to move my weight off of it, but it doesn't help.

Mutt Peeta scoffs. "See, this is why everyone hates you. You're such a bitch."

I can't help it. I flinch. It's been so long that I've heard Peeta talk that way.

_But it's not Peeta,_ I remind myself yet again.

He examines my expression with mild interest, those dark eyes shining in the dim light slanting into from the hall. "What?" he says.

All I can bring myself to say is, "You're not Peeta."

"Oh, for…"

Mutt Peeta throws his hands in the air, stands up and walks away, grumbling. He makes a loop around the kitchen, then comes back with his arms folded over his chest. He casts a shadow over me, the hall light outlining his form, and I find myself looking him up and down. In all the times we've slept together, even in the times we've pleasured each other, I've only caught glimpses of him. There have always been blankets draped over us, or pieces of clothing, or simply the veil of darkness. I've never gotten a good look at him, naked except for boxers. And now, even though it couldn't be a less opportune time, I find myself gazing at his arms, his broad chest, his mismatched legs.

Something in me snaps and I slam to a halt. _Stop it!_ I scream at myself. _It's not him!_

But as he steps toward me, I don't move away. And even when he reaches down and tips my face up with two fingers under my chin, I allow it. He looks like Peeta, except for those eyes. He even smells like Peeta. Honey and soap flakes and cinnamon. But there's something so intrinsically different in his movements, his tone of voice. He's Peeta, and yet he isn't. But if he isn't Peeta, then who…?

I give my head a gruff shake, jerking my face away from his hand. I'm thinking in circles. I feel as if I'm trying to put together a puzzle that's missing half its pieces.

"Katniss?"

I look up into his dilated eyes, scared and cold and confused, and he takes a step back.

"Who are you?" he mumbles, imitating my inflections, and then, "Who am I? Not him. Not him."

He begins to wring his hands, wandering this way and that. He rakes one hand through his hair. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was about to have a flashback. But how is that possible if he's in the midst of one right now?

"Peeta?" I say lowly, crawling slowly out from my hiding spot. "Peeta, are you all right?"

He turns on me so suddenly I jump. "Stop calling me that!" he roars, and I balk. His chest rises and falls as he stares at me, venom in his dark gaze. His hand cuts through the air in a quick gesture. "Go," he says shortly. "Go on. Get out of here."

I blink at him.

"Go!" he barks, raising a hand menacingly.

I lurch to my feet and run. I slap aside the blanket hanging over the kitchen doorway and flit through the living room, down the hall and up the stairs. I've already locked myself in our room and rolled under the bed when I realize that I don't hear anything. No yelling, no china breaking, no sounds of pursuit.

It's as if he's vanished.

I wait for what feels like an eternity, but the house is silent except for my own heaving breaths.

I pull a quilt off the mattress, roll myself up in it and curl into a ball under the bed. Confusion and fear swirl in my head like a thick fog, but exhaustion takes over, and soon I'm being pulled unwillingly into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

The first thing I see when I wake up is a pair of blue eyes.

I throw myself at Peeta – the real Peeta, _my_ Peeta – with a sob of relief.

His arms close around me, tugging me gently out from under the bed. "Katniss," he says, and his voice is thick and rasping. He presses his face into my hair. "Oh, god, Katniss, I'm so sorry."

I cling to him wordlessly.

"Please talk to me," he begs.

"I don't know what to say."

"Say I didn't hurt you," he whispers. "Say you're okay."

"I'm okay."

"But are you really?"

I pause for a split second before saying, "Yes."

He pulls back an inch and looks down at me. I search his gaze hungrily. His eyes are blessedly blue again, and I drink the color in, guzzling it like cold water in a drought.

"You hesitated," he says quietly. His palm comes to rest gently on my stomach, where the bruises from my multiple falls are ripening.

"It wasn't you," I assure him. "I fell in the attic and pulled a box down on myself."

He nods slowly. "You said that last night." He frowns. "Real or not real?"

"Real." I feel the need to expand upon the explanation. "I tried telling you, but you didn't believe me."

His hands go to my shoulders, then slide down my arms. He begins rubbing absentminded circles on the delicate flesh of my wrists. "You asked me to stay," he remembers, "And then you kissed me."

"Real," I exhale. He remembers.

But then he gnaws on his lower lip, his eyes clouded in confusion. He speaks slowly. "And then I… woke up in the kitchen."

My eyes widen involuntarily. He doesn't remember, after all. Usually Peeta can pick out bits and pieces of fuzzy memories from his flashbacks, even if they're warped or shiny. For him to have an entire night wiped from his memory is… troubling, to say the least.

When I remain silent, he goes on.

"And you were sleeping under the bed."

I look down at my hands, avoiding his gaze.

Peeta touches my chin with his fingers, tipping my face towards him, and it reminds me so much of Mutt Peeta that I give an involuntary shiver.

"Katniss. Tell me what happened."

I open my mouth, but the words get tangled up in my throat. Should I tell him about how he changed? How _he_ talked to me? Mutt Peeta? Should I tell him about the conversation we had?

_"Who are you?"_

_"I don't know. I'm not Peeta. I mean, I'm part of him."_

 I still haven't puzzled out what it means. I can barely put the words together in my head, much less out loud. So I don't try.

"Nothing," I lie. "You went downstairs and I stayed up here."

Peeta knows me. He knows I'm not telling him something. I can see it in the way he looks at me. But in the end all he says is, "Do you want breakfast?"

* * *

I almost drop the phone when I actually hear it begin to ring. The phone lines must be back up. For the time being. Who knows how long that will last, what with the blizzard still raging outside.

Typically, Haymitch doesn't pick up. I put the phone down after ten rings, not particularly concerned. He's holed up in his house with plenty of food and alcohol in his cupboards. Probably passed out drunk on the couch right now, or just ignoring the phone altogether.

After a moment's hesitation, I pick up the receiver once more and dial Dr. Aurelius's number. Peeta is in the kitchen. I can hear him moving around, preparing today's assemblage of baked goods. If I'm ever going to tell the doctor about what happened, it needs to be now, while I'm two floors away and Peeta is distracted.

My gut twists with guilt - what am I doing, sneaking around, hiding things from Peeta? – but then there's a click and Dr. Aurelius's voice says, "Hello?"

I don't even stop to greet him before the whole story comes pouring out of my mouth. Well, not the whole story. I leave out the bit about how we lay in bed together, kissing and touching and cuddling. I couldn’t ever tell Doctor Aurelius about _that_. But I tell him everything else. Waking up in the middle of the night. Peeta's flashback. How he changed. What he said. How he doesn't seem to remember anything that happened past the kiss. Several times he has to ask me to slow down or repeat something, and I can make out the dry scratch of a pen on paper from his side of the line.

I finish my rant with, "I don't know what's going on."

Doctor Aurelius is strangely silent, the phone conveying only the scribbling of his pen. At last he sighs, speaking carefully. "I have some idea."

"What?" I demand. "What is it?"

"Normally I wouldn't release information without knowing for sure that my theory is correct, but seeing as you'll be in close proximity with Mr. Mellark for some time, I think it's necessary that I alert you to the situation."

He's rambling, throwing psych jargon at me, and I'm growing impatient. And anxious. Is it really so bad? Is there something wrong with Peeta? Is he relapsing?

"Just tell me," I say.

"I've suspected this for some time, but your description of last night's events has led me to believe that my suspicions are correct."

"Oh, for god's sake, tell me!" My voice has risen without my consent and I glance quickly towards the hallway, hoping my near-shout didn't reach the kitchen. Lowering my voice, I say, "What's going on?"

"I believe Mr. Mellark may have a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder."

"What?" I say.

"You may recognize it as Multiple Personality Disorder," Doctor Aurelius says simply, and I hear paper shuffling on his end. "Some torture victims develop the condition to subconsciously cope with the trauma they experienced. It's especially common in victims who were tortured mentally as well as physically, as in Mr. Mellark's hijacking."

All the blood has drained from my head, and I feel so dizzy I have to grope for the chair behind me and sit down. The things Doctor Aurelius is telling me make no sense, and yet they explain so much.

_Multiple personality. Torture. Trauma. Hijacking._

"Doctor," I say weakly, "Do you mean there are… other people living inside Peeta's head?"

"Personalities," he corrects. "Yes. Or, personality. At the present we know only of one. The one you met. There may be others."

"Other personalities," I murmur. My forehead is braced on the heel of my hand, and I can feel my fingers shaking. There can't be another person in Peeta's head. How can there be? Why haven't I seen any evidence of it?

But then I think of Peeta's flashbacks. How, sometimes, he doesn't fully remember what he did or said. How he's like a different person when he goes into one of his rages. Maybe I did see the evidence; I just didn't know what it was.

"I'll need to speak with Mr. Mellark in order to be positive," Doctor Aurelius is saying. "So please put him on the phone when you can."

"Okay." I tangle the phone cord around my hand so tightly that the ends of my fingers start to turn purple. "What do I do if… If _he_ comes back?"

"The other personality?"

I nod, then remember he can't see me and say, "Yes."

"I'd say, as long as he isn't aggressive, talk to him. If, like he said, he's a part of Peeta, it would be to our advantage to get to know him."

"What? But…"

I'm trying to come up with an excuse not to talk to Mutt Peeta again when Doctor Aurelius says, "Besides, in my experience with D.I.D., the extra personalities are just as much people as the original is. Mr. Mellark's other personality should be treated as such, especially if you're living together for the winter."

I nearly swallow my tongue. "What do you mean?" I sputter. "For the winter? It'll be that long? Can't you make the other person… go away or something?"

I can imagine Doctor Aurelius shaking his head, his thick spectacles flashing in the light. "Extra personalities have been known to fade, given time, but oftentimes they never truly leave. Mr. Mellark's other personality may be around for the rest of his life."

* * *

When I go to tell Peeta that Doctor Aurelius wants to talk to him, I can't look him in the eye. I'm afraid that if I meet his gaze, his eyes will be dark and  _he'll_ be looking out at me. Mutt Peeta.

While he talks with Doctor Aurelius, I sit on the couch and stare at the curtains, listening to the muffled buzzing of Peeta's voice through the layers of walls and floors. I can't make out individual words or sounds, just tones. The melody of his voice. Right now, he's asking a series of questions, pausing between each to hear the doctor's answer.

I chew on a nail, leaning my head on the stiff cover of an embroidered throw pillow, and wait. And wait.

I must clock out for a while, because the next thing I know Peeta is shaking my shoulder.

"Hey," he says.

I blink several times, clearing the haze from my vision, and look at him. "Hey," I mumble.

Peeta eases himself into the seat next to me, looking me over. "Doctor Aurelius wanted to know more about the flashback last night," he says slowly. "And, frankly, so would I."

I trace the frayed outline of a flower on the pillow, pretending I don't know what he means. "Oh?"

Peeta says nothing in response, which is answer enough.

I pick nervously at a loose thread, at last meeting his eyes. "What?"

"Katniss," Peeta says, and his voice carries the heavy inflections of urgency. "I need to know what happened. You need to tell me."

"Nothing," I try to say, but my voice has deserted me, and it comes out a cracked whisper.

Peeta's eyes search mine, blue as the late evening sky, and all at once I'm thrown back to the dream. To dream-Peeta's eyes, glowing softly with an indigo haze. To the dark pines beyond the window, dusted with silver snow. To the living room – _this_ room, I realize with a thrill – warm with the light of a gentle hearth fire. To his fingers playing between my thighs.

The muscles in my legs tighten involuntarily, pressing my thighs together, and a hot blush tingles in my cheeks. I start to look away, but then Peeta's hands slide over my cheeks, his thumbs rubbing the delicate skin behind my ears, and he pulls my mouth to his.

I give in gratefully, if hesitantly, confused at the shift in events.

At least he isn't asking about the flashback anymore.

Peeta's tongue pokes out to dab at my lower lip and I allow him to push my lips open with his own, tracing the contours of my mouth with long, diligent strokes. I sigh, touching the tip of my tongue to his, relaxing into the kiss. If this is what it takes to distract him, so be it. Who am I to complain if he wants to kiss on the couch all morning?

But then, as Peeta's hand coaxes up the hem of my sweater, it occurs to me that he might not be the one getting distracted.

He leans back and an embarrassingly needy whine slips from my lips at the loss.

"What were you thinking about?" Peeta murmurs, ending the question with a quick kiss on my throat.

"Hmm?" I hum. I try to guide his lips back to mine, but he shakes his head and pulls back an inch.

"What were you thinking about?" he repeats.

I stare at him, trying to formulate an appropriate lie – because I can't bring myself to even _think_ of telling Peeta about my dream – and after a moment he returns obligingly to my mouth.

Then there's a tug on my sweater and it slips off me, popping over my head and falling in a knot on the floor. My shirt quickly follows, and then I'm left in pants and a bra, shivering slightly. We haven't yet lit a fire in the living room fireplace, and the air is cool and crisp, turning my nipples into taut peaks under the thin cotton of my bra. Peeta presses my shoulders, lowering me ever so gently to my back. He places his hands carefully, painstakingly avoiding the developing bruises on my stomach and thighs. When he settles over me, his warmth banishes the shivers.

Hot, open-mouthed kisses land on my throat, my shoulder, my chest. Peeta looks up to me for permission, and I give a quick nod. It takes him a couple tries, but then my bra slips down my arms and Peeta drops it to the floor, looking exceptionally pleased with himself. I roll my eyes at his smug expression, but then he leans down to press the flat of his tongue to the peak of one breast and my head falls back.

"Won't you tell me?" Peeta murmurs.

"Huh?" I sigh, trying to remember what he's talking about. Oh, yes. The dream. He wants me to talk about the dream.

Peeta goes to work at the button of my pants, and a moment later they loosen and I kick them down my legs. My panties soon follow, and suddenly I'm wearing nothing at all. But Peeta's body is solid and warm and close, and with him now lying over me, I'm not nearly as cold as I thought I'd be.

"Katniss." His palm ghosts down my thigh, and he gently lifts my leg to drape over his hip. The position opens me to him, and I instinctively cringe in embarrassment, hiding my face in his shoulder. I am still not accustomed to being so exposed.

Peeta gives me time to adjust to our position before he begins to pluck at the peak of one breast. Dull pangs of pleasure shoot from his fingers to the apex of my thighs, coaxing a whimper from my lips and washing away the last of my embarrassment. I shift my legs in an attempt to quell the ache there, but it only serves to increase it.

"Tell me," Peeta says. He drops a quick kiss on one breast, his slightly chapped lips pleasingly rough against the sensitive skin. "Please?"

His voice is soft and soothing, and the ripples of pleasure must be making me brave – or else stupid – because I find myself opening my mouth to answer. "Just thinking about a dream," I mumble.

Peeta's fingers barely brush against the sensitive skin inside my thigh. I jerk, my breath catching in my throat.

"What was it about?" he asks as his fingers probe the length of my slit, sliding through the silky fluid that has gathered there. They bump over that epicenter of pleasure and my hips rise without my consent, wordlessly pleading for more.

I press my lips together, my cheeks heating all over again. I can't, I _can't_ tell him about the dream. I can't put that into words.

Peeta leans his forehead against my own. He inhales, taking in the scent of my hair, and his fingers begin grinding gentle circles over that little pearl. Soft waves of pleasure lap at the flesh between my thighs and my eyes close.

"This," I admit in a gasp. "I – oh. I was dreaming about this."

Peeta's actions slow for a moment as he takes in the information, and then he lifts his head. I open my eyes, tentatively, half-expecting to find a frown of disapproval on his face. Instead, I find a goofy smile.

"Really?" he says.

I squirm, unable to focus properly what with the way his fingers are pulsing against my most sensitive spot. "Yes," I say quietly. I rush on, feeling the need to explain myself. "I didn't mean – I mean, it wasn't – I didn't –"

Peeta's huff of laughter cuts me off, the breath brushing past my cheek. "Katniss," he whispers, "I thought we already established that you can have me whenever you want. You don't need to apologize."

His eyes lock onto mine, big and blue and sincere. The sweet rhythm between my thighs is fogging my thoughts, but I still hear his next words loud and clear.

"I'm yours. Every part of me. You know that."

I nod, my hands rising on their own to cup his face. He bends willingly, placing a soft kiss on my lips.

The pleasure is slowly increasing, swelling in my lower abdomen, and my hips jerk in time with his motions. My breath comes in random gasps, making it hard to speak, but I manage, "I'm yours, too."

I wouldn't trade the resulting smile on his face for anything in the world. He looks as if I just handed him the sun, moon and stars.

Peeta has just slipped one finger inside me when I realize: _every part of me_. That's what he said. _"I'm yours. Every part of me."_

_"I'm part of him."_

I had all but forgotten about Mutt Peeta, but now his words come rushing back. I'm trying to muddle my way through the implications when Peeta speaks.

"And what happened in your dream?"

"Um," I say quietly, attempting – and mostly failing – to gather my thoughts. "I was here. In the living room. Looking out the window."

"Watching the sunset," Peeta recalls, "That's what you told me yesterday."

I nod, drawing in a shaky breath. Sensation swirls around me – Peeta's warm puffs of breath, his weight keeping me pressed down into the couch cushions, his finger pushing ever-deeper up into my depths – and it's growing increasingly difficult to censor the words that come out of my mouth. He curls his finger, pressing it into that sweet spot inside me, and I moan.

"Keep going," he encourages. "What happened next?"

"The sun went down," I say, shuddering as I contract involuntarily around Peeta's finger. He slowly withdraws it, only to add another and push them back in. It stretches me in a way that might be uncomfortable if it didn't feel so _good_ , and I can feel my arousal beginning to drip from between my thighs.

"And then?"

 "You were there. You held me."

Peeta nods for me to continue, his fingers curling forward into that spot again, and the pleasure seems to vibrate between my hips.

"You kissed me… kissed my neck…"

As I speak, remembering the details of my erotic dream, Peeta's lips scale my throat. They fix themselves just above my pulse point and his tongue flicks out, tasting the skin there.

"You touched me."

His fingers slip out of me and he begins circling the sensitive pebble of flesh above my opening. I give a small gasp at the loss – without his fingers inside me, I am agonizingly empty. My insides pulse, hot and slick and aching.

"Like this?" Peeta asks, lifting his head momentarily to speak. He circles the nub, igniting sparks of pleasure in me.

"Yes," I whisper, the word dangerously close to becoming a plea.

Peeta spreads my folds, exposing the delicate flesh to the crisp air, and my legs try to close. One of his legs slides between mine, keeping my knees apart, and his attentions return to my swollen bundle of nerves. He gives it a quick, sharp pinch and I moan, the unexpected mix of pleasure and pain swirling through me. My limbs feel heavy, drained of strength. All the tension in my body is concentrated between my thighs, where it throbs with my heartbeat, and suddenly I want to shatter more than I want anything else in the world. I want to come undone. To get lost in the pleasure. Little gasps and moans rise from my throat.

"And then?" Peeta hums.

"We lay down. In front of the fireplace. Oh. Oh, Peeta!"

Images flash in front of my eyes as the pleasure mounts, the dream overlapping with reality. The impossible softness of the fur bedroll. Peeta's fingers, pumping up into me. Frost-swathed woods. The chilly air. The scent of honey, of cinnamon, of dill.

"And then?"

"I woke up," I say regretfully.

Peeta shifts himself, pulling his weight off of me, and I shiver as the cool air hits my skin. "Well," he says, his eyes shining with mischief. "I suppose we'll just have to fill in the blanks ourselves."

"I suppose we will," I breathe.

I lean up to kiss him, but he pulls away at the last second. "Only," he says, smoothing away my scowl with a quick peck, "If you tell me what happened last night."

I stare up at him with large eyes, panting, utterly trapped. How could I possibly tell him that? But if I refused… If I remained quiet… He wouldn't just leave me here, would he? The idea sends a spike of panic through my chest.

Peeta, watching my thoughts flash behind my eyes, moves a hand to my face. He strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers, murmuring encouragements. His other hand has stopped moving, and the ache in me swells with need until I am nearly inconsolable. It's extremely unfair, I think – getting me worked up and then pulling away at the last minute. I'll have to remember to be angry with him later. For now, it's all I can do to nod, slowly, wary of the direction this conversation is going.

I expected some sort of immediate response, so I am mildly surprised when Peeta does nothing at first. That is, he rolls to his side, moving me so that my backside rubs against the back of the couch and my front is protected from the chill by his body. He kisses me, lulling me with lazy flicks of his tongue and soft noises of approval. Our legs intertwine, the rough material of his trousers sliding along my calves. When we at last break apart and I lean my forehead against his shoulder, my breath condenses on the downy wool of his sweater. I lick my lips and taste him on me. Chamomile tea and the griddle cakes we had for breakfast and something else, something that is just _Peeta._

While his right hand smoothes back my hair, his left hand twitches, and I realize that it is still wedged between my legs.

"Why don't we start simple," Peeta says, his voice low and husky.

"Okay," I whisper.

Simple is good.

Peeta eases his thumb onto my pearl, massaging it with soft but deliberate strokes.

That's good, too.

I feel Peeta's inhalation near my ear. "You had bruises."

I nod, tipping my hips up to get a better angle. The pleasure deep in my belly and the trepidation lodged in my skull battle for dominance. My skin prickles with goose bumps, but my blood surges hot through my veins. I am a bow, I decide; stretched taut, singing with tension, ready to snap.

"I woke up from a nightmare a-and…" Peeta's voice wavers and my hands go to his shoulders, steadying him, but he recovers quickly. "And I had blood on my hands."

"No," I say. "Not real."

"But…"

"It was paint. You were painting and it stained your hands – ah!" I squeak, my head rolling back as he slips two fingers inside me without warning.

Peeta nods slowly, his eyes thoughtful, as if he wasn't driving me to near insanity with one hand.

"That's when I had the flashback."

His fingers curl forward inside me, seeking out that soft spot. And then they find it. And the last of my sanity leaves me.

I can't nod, can't speak, can't do anything. I'm too overcome with the pleasure. It expands within me in tendrils, curling through my stomach and into the quivering muscles of my thighs. He touches me as if he's been doing it all his life, and oh, _oh,_ I can actually hear his fingers slipping through my wetness, pumping up into me. The soft sucking noise sends a fresh surge of wetness seeping from me.

Peeta cups the back of my head with his free hand, suddenly urgent. "Promise," he demands. "Promise me, Katniss. Promise you'll tell me the truth."

"Oooh, Peeta," I moan as his fingers pump into me mercilessly, his thumb still grinding that exquisite bundle of nerves, his fingers crooked forward into _that spot_. I don't know what I'm agreeing to, but it can't possibly matter. "I promise."

My response must have been satisfactory, because the next thing I know Peeta's mouth is tracing the pebbled tip of one breast, his tongue venturing out to dab at the flesh. A helpless moan slips through my lips and I knot my fingers into his hair. His lips close around one nipple and he gives a strong suck. The sensation heightens the delicious throbbing between my legs, and I can feel myself rapidly approaching a climax. Sounds rise unchecked from my throat. Mewls and gasps and groans. Peeta moves to the other breast, whispering something I don't catch. Something golden and otherworldly builds up in me, and when he curls his fingers forward one last time, I am lost. Pleasure sizzles through me, drawing every one of my muscles tight, and I writhe against him.

And then it's over, and I'm left panting against his temple, beads of sweat turning my skin clammy. Like the last two times, I'm exhausted, and though it's not yet noon I want nothing more than to draw a blanket over myself and go to sleep.

Peeta sits up and I reach out to him with a grumpy whine. I don't want him to leave. But a moment later he lies back down. I realize, as he maneuvers my limp limbs into a semi-upright position, that he has taken off his sweater. A moment later he slips it over my head.

"D'you want me to…?" I ask, waving a hand in the general direction of his pants. The answer is obvious – the front of his trousers is tented.

He chuckles. "No. I mean, yes. Of course. But you're obviously about to fall asleep."

"And whose fault is that?" I yawn, burrowing against him.

"Yours." He reaches over me, fumbling with something, and then tugs down the blanket that had been draped over the back of the couch. "You drove me to this, you know."

I shift my legs until the blanket covers them. "Mmm."

I drift off to sleep like I used to on the train: with my ear pressed firmly to his chest, listening to the reassuring steadiness of his heartbeat.

I wake hours later with a vague sense of dread clenching at my gut. At first I think I had a nightmare.

Then I remember the promise I made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not an expert on Dissociative Identity Disorder. Just saying.  
> Also! Important question: I've been toying with the idea of writing a canon divergence from Mockingjay where Prim lives. It would be Everlark, but it would include strong elements of Prim/Katniss (ahem) if you know what I mean. Anyone interested?


	7. Chapter Seven

 I'm still wearing Peeta's sweater, but the blanket has slipped off me. My bare legs prickle with gooseflesh in the chill air. That might have been what woke me.

That, and the fact that I promised Peeta I would tell him what happened last night. And I can't.

I press my face into the nearest available surface, which happens to be Peeta's shoulder, and groan. He shifts beneath me, muttering sleepily, and I prop my chin on the back of my hand to glare up at him.

"That was cheating, you know."

"Wha'?" he yawns.

"Making me promise."

"Mmm." He scrubs at his eyes, still groggy. The hair on one side of his head is flat, fanning into a messy cowlick above his temple, and he slides his hand up to push at it halfheartedly. "… time is it?"

I can't see a clock from here, but frosty, bright light slants into the room through the fissures between the curtains. "Early afternoon," I guess. We slept for a few hours.

The old couch cushion bounces and sways beneath me as Peeta sits up, disentangling himself from my arms, and looks down at me. I know what comes next. I can tell by the earnest set of his jaw, the slight tilt of his eyebrows. "Katniss," he starts.

"I can't," I blurt before he can go on. "I'm sorry. I can't… I don't… I barely know what happened, okay? I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to. It doesn't make sense, it…" _Multiple personalities._ "I can't. Not now. I mean, not yet." _I'm yours. Every part of me._ "I just need some time to think it over. I will tell you." _I'm part of him._

Peeta dips his chin to study me. The flexing muscle in his jaw tells me he's not content with my answer, but all he does is nod and say, "That's okay. Just… don't take too long, okay?"

I nod, fishing for the blanket where it lies crumpled on top of my clothes beside the couch. Stretching, Peeta stands, oblivious to the guilt eating away at my innards. It wasn't _all_ lies – I really don't think I can tell him about Mutt Peeta just yet, when I barely know what happened myself. But the longer I put it off the worse it will be. Does Peeta even know? Does he know there could be another person living inside him, or – oh, god. I can't think about that. I can't even imagine what that must be like, waking up somewhere with no idea as to how you came to be there or what your body was doing while you were unconscious. Peeta has described his flashbacks to me before, briefly, but somehow this is worse. It's not just Peeta's subconscious that causes destruction during his episodes, it's an intelligent _being,_ separate and fully capable of doing harm and… What if it – he? – tries to hurt Peeta? What if it tries to kill him while Peeta himself is unconscious?

Peeta's voice reaches me from the kitchen, but I don't register the words. My fingers scrabble weakly at my chest, trying to release the increasing pressure there, and blood sings in my ears, my heartbeat a hard, frenzied rhythm that shoots through my body. I recognize the signs of a panic attack and the list starts rolling in my head: _My name is Katniss Everdeen. My home is District Twelve._

Peeta is saying my name. I try to answer, but my throat burns, the phantom pain of a crushed trachea choking me, and –

What if he hurts Peeta, what if he takes over again –

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. My home –_

Peeta. I have to get to Peeta, I have to warn him.

_My home is District Twelve._

My head spins and I clutch the doorframe to keep myself from collapsing. I don't even remember leaving the couch.

_My home is –_

Where are you?

_Is –_

Can't breathe. My chest is too tight and everything is spinning and I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe…

There's a touch on my shoulder and a shriek rips at the tender tissues of my throat. My legs tangle when I try to bolt and my side slams into the floor, knocking the air from my lungs, and all I can do is lie there, writhing in panic as I struggle to inhale, to exhale, to do anything.

And then, all at once, my lungs expand and I gulp down the cool air. Peeta is talking to me – he has been all along, I realize, but only now did I register it – and I surge up to clasp his wrists.

"Peeta," I sputter, "Th-there's – it's –" There's some kind of disconnect between my brain and my mouth, so all that comes out is stuttering and nonsense, but I need to tell him. I need to warn him. "Doctor Aurelius said…"

And I begin to cry.

Peeta rocks me through the ugly, heaving sobs, which just makes it that much worse because he shouldn't be this nice to me. I don't deserve it. I started this in the first place. This is my fault. If I had just told him what happened up front instead of being such a coward… But I didn't. And now I need to.

It takes nearly half an hour, a dozen repetitions of my mantra and two glasses of water to calm me enough for me to string several sentences together without butchering the words. The first thing I say is, "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to," he starts, but I cut him off.

"I should have just told you."

That catches his attention. His posture shifts, subtly, into one of wariness. His voice remains low and modulated, though, as he says, "Told me what?"

My fingers twist together, slippery with sweat. "You… weren't yourself."

"I hurt you."

"No. I told you, you didn't." A shaky laugh burbles in my throat, fueled by incredulousness. "Actually, h… you didn't touch me at all once I said not to."

The corners of Peeta's mouth twitch as I change mid-word from _he_ to _you_ , but he makes no comment except, "And before you said not to?"

"Just picked me up," I mumble. "Then I said to let me go and you did."

He did. Mutt Peeta. He put me down, and then he gave me the sheet back so I wouldn't be naked in the pantry. I barely believe my own memory. Surely a malicious personality wouldn't do that. Surely "Mutt Peeta" is just Peeta, not a separate entity at all. Doctor Aurelius is wrong. Peeta doesn't have Multiple Personality, or whatever he called it. He just has flashbacks from the hijacking. That doesn't mean there are other people in his mind. Of course not. That doesn't make sense. I would have known if he did.

_It's not true,_ I decide. I know Peeta better than anyone. If Doctor Aurelius is right, that would mean that it hasn't always been _Peeta_ living with me, baking, holding me through nightmares and painting and double-knotting his shoelaces like he always does. He's Peeta. He can't be anyone else. It was stupid of me to worry – indeed, to break down completely – because I thought a malignant spirit had taken over his body. The idea is ridiculous. Like something in a clichéd horror story. Now that my panic has receded, I can shake my head at myself for ever believing it.

All this goes through my head in a matter of seconds, so I've already made up my mind by the time Peeta finishes saying, "Why didn't you tell me this morning?"

"I was confused," I murmur. "I'm sorry."

He takes a deep breath in, nodding to himself, and sits back on his heels. We haven't moved from the floor of the kitchen doorway since I collapsed here, and now he plucks the empty water glass from where it sits beside us and stands. "C'mon. Let's sit down."

Blood heats my cheeks when my toe catches on a loop of my trousers, which still lie crumpled on the floor, and I realize that I've been wearing nothing but Peeta's sweater this whole time. No wonder my legs are so cold. He's already seen my completely naked, but he looks away politely while I hop into my clothes.

I talk as I dress. I tell him how I recognized a flashback in his eyes and fled the bedroom, ending up in the kitchen. I tell him how he caught me, and how he let me go, and how we sat in the pantry and spoke over a stack of flour bags. I don't tell him about how he seemed like a different person, or how he muttered "Who am I?" to himself over and over.

_It was just a relapse from the hijacking,_ I tell myself firmly. _He struggled with who he was after he was rescued from the Capitol, too. He didn't even know his own favorite color. This is no different._

So I skip over the part about his minor identity crisis and end with, "You said I should leave, so I went back upstairs and fell asleep under the bed."

"And I found you there in the morning," he finishes for me. I expected my explanation to calm him, but since I started talking he has just grown more agitated. He perches on the edge of the couch cushion, head bent, one knee bouncing. I eye him, trying to decide if I should pry or just leave him to his thoughts, and he abruptly bursts out, "Why don't I remember?"

"Aren't your memories of episodes usually a little foggy?" I venture, sinking onto the couch next to him.

He shakes his head. "Foggy. Not… _gone._ Not like this. It's only the really bad ones where I can't remember anything at all. Like Mitchell." His voice breaks and he drops his face into his palms, rubbing harshly at his skin like he's trying to scrub away imagined blood. The muscles in my own face harden, pulling the skin around my eyes taut. I hadn't realized he would be affected like this. I should have. Of course this is hitting him hard if it reminds him of our time in the Capitol.

I lean forward, placing an experimental hand on his arm, and while he doesn't lean into me, he doesn't pull away, either.

"That wasn't your fault," I say, and a small tremor runs through him. "And neither was this. And, anyway, it wasn't that bad at all. I told you, you weren't violent."

He straightens with a startling swiftness and turns an anguished gaze on me. "If it wasn't that bad then why can't I remember?"

Something in the back of my mind prods at me, telling me that I know the answer, but I quash it. _Just a flashback,_ I repeat. _Like all the others._

I reach for him again, and this time he sags against me, braiding his arms around my shoulders and allowing me to rest my chin on the crown of his head. My turn to be the consoler.

* * *

We spend the rest of the day quietly, reading and dozing and watching snow swirl across the crust of ice that has formed over the drifts. After our respective breakdowns this morning, it's a much-needed rest. We dig a tub of rabbit soup out of the freezer and heat it on the stove for dinner. Then Peeta retreats into his painting room and I wander the house, drifting from one seat to the next, kept on my feet by a vague but persistent uneasiness. I end up in the bedroom and my hands start assembling kindling and tinder in the fireplace automatically. The fire catches quickly, and I rock back on my heels to watch it grow. It swells in the hearth, licking at the old bricks of the fireplace, and the light jumps across the carpet and lands on a book.

Curious, I slide the book toward me with a finger. The gold lettering flashes in the firelight: _HUMAN ANATOMY, VOLUME 3_. The book I tossed down the attic stairs after pulling the box down on top of myself. I meant to tear out its pages as kindling, but the fire is already started by now, no longer in need of paper balls to get it going. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

I'm about to set the book aside, but something stays my hand. Maybe the book includes information on mental disorders as well as physical anatomy. There might be information on the disorder Doctor Aurelius thinks Peeta has. He _doesn't_ have it, of course, but still. It could be useful.

I heft myself to my feet, book in hand, and limp my way to the armchair by the window. My foot is starting to heal, but it's still a relief to prop it up on the ottoman as I read.

The index doesn't say much about mental disorders, so I flip to the chapter dedicated to the human brain. It's painfully dull reading, and I only understand half of the words. Most of it is medical jargon interspersed with miniscule graphs displaying data that means nothing to me. I'm about to close the book and condemn it to the fire when my thumb slips and the heavy stack of pages flops to one side, opening to another section of the book. A quick glance tells me that I have landed on the chapter on human sexuality.

I snap the book shut, my teeth digging into my lower lip so hard I think I might draw blood. My eyes dart to the doorway and my heart stutters, as if I'm expecting to be caught for doing something wrong. God, what would Peeta think if he walked in to find me reading about _that?_ And yet… And yet. He couldn't blame me, could he? I mean, he obviously knows much more about this kind of thing than I do, just from overhearing his brothers. I'm at a disadvantage in that respect. I know virtually nothing about this. It couldn't hurt anything to… do some research. And anyway, it's just a textbook. My mother probably ordered it when she lived here, when she had little more than some herbs and an old journal on natural healing to help her treat patients. If my mother – my sweet, stiffly proper mother – read this for healing purposes, how bad can it be, really?

I let the book fall open once more and thumb through the pages with shaking hands until I come to the start of the chapter.

It quickly becomes apparent that I am not cut out for this. I have to half-close the book ever few moments and stare off into space, willing my face to cool, before I can continue. I skim and skip and flip pages quickly, and still I learn more about what goes on between men and women – biologically, that is – than I ever wanted or expected to. It's when I happen upon a page crammed with full-color diagrams that I slam the book shut with a mortified squeak and spring up. I wrap my arms around it tightly, making sure the title is covered, and slip out of the bedroom and up the attic stairs. I can't burn it. If I toss it in the fireplace the shiny cover may survive and Peeta might see it and ask questions, and I do not want to explain how it ended up there. Instead I cram it back into its box, next to volumes one, two and four, and stow the whole set in the farthest, darkest corner of the attic I can find.

_Serves me right for even opening it,_ I think with a shudder, closing the attic door behind me.

My blush subsides after a little while, but when it comes time for bed and Peeta ambles in to brush his teeth, casual as can be in his worn pajamas, my whole head heats right back up. Peeta even asks me if I feel all right, pressing his hand to my forehead and commenting that I look flushed. I stammer something about maybe getting a cold and busy myself with the bed sheets, needlessly smoothing them out.

"Well, don't give it to me," Peeta says, either believing my small lie or choosing to ignore it.

I want to curl myself into a ball on the far end of the bed, where Peeta can't feel the nervous tension in my limbs, but I can't distance myself from him after this morning. He would think it was his fault, and his cycle of worry would start all over again. I can't do that to him. So I lie in my usual position under the covers, counting on the darkness to hide how furiously I'm blushing. Of course, _of course,_ Peeta pulls me to him after switching off the lights, snuggling against me with a contented sigh.

After a moment he speaks. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," I say.

He rubs my arm in what I'm sure is meant to be a soothing gesture, but it only serves to wind me up more. "Bad evening? I knew I should have come to check on you."

_And what a mess that would have been if you did,_ I think. Out loud I say, "Sort of."

I don't offer any more information, and he doesn't ask for it.

I don't fall asleep for a long time, and neither does Peeta. He shifts and turns several times, and his breathing doesn't even out until hours into the night. The fire fades into ruddy coals. Still, my eyes don't close.

It occurs to me that I know a way to get to sleep. I reject the idea out of hand. I can't, _won't_ touch myself with Peeta right beside me. It's unthinkable.

I cast a fearful glance at the gently snoring form beside me and wriggle further under the covers anyway. _Just this once,_ I promise myself.

My nightshirt has ridden up my thighs, as it usually does, so it takes less than a second to hitch it up to my stomach and slip one thumb under the band of my panties. Peeta twitches and I go still, heart fluttering, but he doesn't stir after that. I don't move again for a good minute and a half, and even then I don't dare breathe as I ease my hand under the thin material. Then my probing fingers delve into my slit, seeking the warm, sensitive flesh within, and I remind myself sternly that I can't make any noise at all.

It doesn't take long before my fingers slide easily over that nubbin of nerves, aided by the slick arousal that steadily leaks from me. My breaths quicken, both out of nervousness and enjoyment. Peeta could wake up at any moment. I don't think he'd be angry with me, but still, I don't want to be caught. The mere idea of having to face him after he caught me touching myself sends a trill of fear and embarrassment down my spine. But I can't stop now. It feels too good to stop.

I try hard not to think about anything in particular, but that doesn't last long. Very soon, flashes of Peeta's lips and hands begin to wander through my mind, teasing me with memories of his fingers between my legs. Somehow, my own fingers don't feel as good as his. If I woke him up now, would he touch me again like he did this morning? I duck my chin at the thought, ashamed at myself, but it won't leave my mind. I could. It would be so easy.

My fingers pulse over that bundle of nerves, working it in a circular motion that I've nearly perfected, and pleasure trembles though my lower belly. The sheets, soft as they are, itch against my sensitized skin. I want to throw off the blankets. It would be such a relief to feel the cool air lap at my skin. Instead, I gather the fabric of my shirt into my free hand and pull it over my head. My braid slips free from it and I drop the piece of clothing somewhere beneath the blankets, not bothering to keep track of it. I do the same with my panties. Now the sheets rub over the puckered tips of my breasts and they begin to ache with a vengeance. My whole body pangs with need.

Somehow, the hand not buried between my legs has ended up at one breast, tweaking the tip. I could just reach over. Shake his shoulder or say his name. I could. But I can't. I can't. But, oh, I want to.

My hips have begun to sway up rhythmically, seeking stimulation and grinding myself against my fingers. The pleasure has worked its way through my insides in tingling tendrils, causing my muscles to twitch and my back to arch. I'm dangerously close to moaning, so I turn and push my face into the pillow. My heaving breaths are too loud as it is.

The pillow is saturated with Peeta's scent. Honey, cinnamon, dill, and the underlying musk of a dormant body. And that's it, I can't – I _can't_ stop myself anymore. A whimper rises from my throat, unbidden, and then I'm lurching to a half-sitting position, one hand stretching out over the covers. My venturing fingers find Peeta's shoulder and curl around his arm.

No sooner have I whispered his name than he turns over to face me. I don't know how long he's been awake, and in this moment I don't care, because now he's clamping his arms around me and kissing me with a ferocious intensity, and he's warm and solid against me and, oh, yes, this is what I needed.

Immediately, he sucks my lower lip into my mouth and nips at it, halfway between playful and frantic. My body bows, pressing itself into him, drinking up his heat. His right hand cradles my jaw, softly, as if he's half-afraid of breaking me, but his left is ruthless. It brushes past my breasts, pausing there only briefly before landing at the apex of my thighs. One of my own hands is still lodged there, and I draw it away, tipping my hips toward him, silently encouraging him to replace my fingers with his own. He does, and for the first time, I allow a small noise to pass my lips.

I don't know why I delayed this for so long. This is good. Like he said himself, Peeta belongs to me, and I belong to him, and it's only right that we should do this together.

The muscles in my thighs tremble when he slowly pushes a finger up into me. I can feel myself clench around it, though I made no conscious decision to, and that sweet, aching emptiness is at once fulfilled and intensified. Somehow, my arms have found their way around his neck, my grip weak but unrelenting. One of them is slowly going numb, pinched beneath me as it is by our rather awkward position. I extract my arm out from underneath my torso and roll onto my back, jostling us and temporarily removing myself from the reach of Peeta's hand and lips. He follows with a short whine of annoyance and settles half-over me, and that's when we make eye contact for the first time since he turned over.

"Hi," he says, a mischievous twinkle lighting up his eyes.

 I didn't know I could still be shy, as aroused as I am, but my eyes lower automatically and my legs tighten around his hand as I whisper back, "Hi."

Peeta rubs the pad of his thumb over my pearl in slow, sure strokes and the resulting throb of pleasure saps the strength from my limbs.

"Is this okay?" he asks, and I almost want to laugh – can't he tell by the eager responses of my body?

My breathing is too shaky to speak clearly, so I nod in answer.

His mouth descends on mine and I let my jaw fall slack. A thick heat thrums through me, urging me to sway my hips up to meet his hand and press my bare chest against the front of his pajama shirt. The answering groan he gives shoots straight to my core. His tongue swirls against mine, and at the same time, his finger curls forward into that soft spot inside me. I jerk, emitting a soft whimper, and then that whimper swells into a long moan as his thumb and finger begin to work in tandem, one grinding down on that nubbin of pleasure and one firmly massaging my front wall, and it's too much, it's far too much and not nearly enough at the same time, and I can do nothing but hitch one knee over his hip and mewl.

Tension mounts fast and hot between my thighs, and I climax without warning, hands fisted in Peeta's curls. He's already moving by the time I've come back to myself, and I begin to reach for the waistband of his pajama pants – it's only fair – when he takes me by the hips and pushes me farther up the bed.

"Peeta?" I murmur, and he returns to drop a kiss on my nose.

He hesitates, tongue poking out to roam over a corner of his mouth, and I lift my eyebrows in question. At last he says, "Can I try something?"

I nod without pausing to think it over. He's said that enough times by now that I know whatever he wants to try will be good. And I trust him. There's no reason to say no. Even so, butterflies manifest in my belly when he adjusts me on the pillows and vanishes beneath the blankets. I twist my fingers into the sheets and fix my eyes on the dark ceiling above me, soaking up the opposing sensations that are slowly settling within me. The tender heaviness left over from my climax mixes with the buzz of anxious anticipation. I feel Peeta's touch just above my hip, his thumb tracing a familiar circle over the delicate skin there, calming me. I close my eyes.

He keeps moving, pulling the blankets down with him, and I give an exclamation of protest as my upper body is exposed to the cold air. In a moment, he turns and yanks the blankets free from where they had been tucked under the mattress, allowing me to stay covered while he sits back on his haunches near the end of the bed. Our eyes meet and I tilt my head, still unsure what he's up to.

"Still okay?" he asks.

I say, "Yes," but the slight tremor in my voice is obvious. I swallow to steady myself and repeat, "Yes."

He doesn't look away as he slides his hand up first one of my calves, then the other, and draws my legs over his shoulders. Then he drops his gaze to my center, and all at once, I realize what he wants to do. I flinch, snapping my legs together, but mingling with my apprehension is a potent wave of desire, washing up my body and filling my cheeks with color. It's bizarre, and I have no idea why he would want to, and the very thought fills me with a prickling surge of embarrassment. But at the same time, the space between my legs flutters, aching. My body wants this, even though I'm not entirely sure I do.

The more I think about it, the more my curiosity builds, pushing its way through the maelstrom of other emotions. What would it feel like, to have his mouth _there?_

Peeta has been still for the past few moments, alternating reassurances with pleas. "It's okay, Katniss, we don't have to if you don't want to. You can say no. But… please let me? Can we try?"

My heart hammers behind my ribs and I can feel my pulse everywhere, especially at my center, beating out a hard rhythm. I force myself to meet his eyes, gather my courage with a long breath and whisper, "Okay."

It's as if I've handed him the sun and stars and silver moon all at once. His eyes light up, his smile disbelieving, as if he expects me to take it back. Then he slides down, balancing himself on his forearms, and I look away because suddenly I'm not brave enough to watch.

I feel his breath, first, warm and moist, ghosting over my inner thigh. Then the very tips of his fingers, easing my folds open, exposing me to the air. A shiver starts in my scalp and runs through the rest of me, and I'm about to pull away and end this whole thing when Peeta's head dips between my thighs and his mouth brushes against my core.

The first touch of his tongue, hot and slick and soft, makes me jerk. It's ticklish and strange, and oh, so warm. And then his tongue reaches my pearl and my mouth stretches open into a silent cry. His mouth moves further down my slit and his tongue pokes out to trace my opening and another shiver goes through me, one of pure need. His tongue ventures a little ways inside of me, and I'm panting though he's barely started, and the ache inside me has never been as strong nor as urgent as it is now. I want something I can't put in words. Then he withdraws and I clench involuntarily, yearning for something to fill me.

He returns to that exquisite kernel of nerves and hesitates, and the only thoughts left in my mind are _oh, yes_ and _please_. As if he heard me – had I spoken aloud? – his tongue flattens over the little epicenter of pleasure and my low moan drifts toward the ceiling, rising over the rattling of the shutters and hissing of wind-borne snow. He dabs at the crest of it, ever so lightly, and then traces it as he had my opening, and even those tiny touches send ripples of pleasure racing though me. I can't help it; I'm pushing my hips toward him, desperate for every sweep of his velvety mouth. I'm vaguely aware of his hands sliding up the backs of my thighs, and then his fingers clamp around my hips, holding me in place as he continues to torment me.

These light touches are driving me mad. It's all so good, but my body is demanding more, and the small ripples of pleasure do nothing to satisfy me. I begin to squirm, needy sounds catching in my throat, and still he continues to tap at my pearl and dip his tongue just a little ways inside me with infuriating gentleness. The muscles in my belly quiver, sore from being strung taut for so long with no reprieve, and heat races through me like a fever, and still he won't do anything more.

"Peeta," I all but sob. "Please."

I feel him chuckle against me, and then his lips lock around my pearl and he begins to suck.

A keening cry bursts from my mouth. My fingers smart, they're so tightly wound in the bed sheets. Peeta hums in answer and the vibration of his voice on my most sensitive part sends me into a frenzy. He suckles at my pearl like he would at my breast, and with every tug of his mouth, pleasure swells between my legs and runs over into my heaving belly and quaking thighs. My hips buckle and Peeta takes over, angling them to better reach me. His tongue drags up and down my slit, collecting the nectar that seeps from me, then delves briefly into me before returning to lap at my throbbing pearl.

My head tips back on the pillow and I moan weakly. I can't move, I can't speak, I can't do anything but hold on and think _oh_ and _yes_ and _Peeta._ Tremors roll through me, one after the other, as he becomes more daring. His teeth close around my pearl in the gentlest of nips and I squeak, startled by the tiny dose of pain, but he immediately washes it away with teasing flicks of his tongue. He sucks at me strongly until my upper body is thrashing, then draws back and tickles me with the very tip of his tongue, barely touching me. He waits until I pant, "Please," again, then attacks me mercilessly, sucking and tapping and sweeping his way up and down my slit, and _dear lord I didn't know anything could feel like this._

My whole body begins to tense, and I know what's about to happen. Part of me wants to delay it, to make this last longer, but the rest of me, body, mind and soul, craves it more than anything. Then the tension snaps and the pleasure reverberates through me, so intense my back bows off the mattress, and I'm lost for the second time tonight.

I'm still twitching and panting when Peeta lets my legs fall from his shoulders and crawls up the bed, wiping at his chin with a sleeve. He gathers me against his chest, tucking the blankets around us, and I slump against him. It's several minutes before I have enough strength to whisper, my voice hoarse.

"Oh, my god."

He runs one hand over my cheek. "Are you okay? I mean, what that okay? I mean…" He trails off, uncharacteristically bashful, and I give a soft laugh.

"Okay? That… I didn't know anything could feel like that," I say, repeating my thoughts from minutes ago. Normally I would never have said that aloud, at least without blushing and being cross with myself, but right now I'm too spent to care.

"Any chance you'd let me do that again?" he asks, and I can hear the grin in his voice though my face is buried in his neck.

I laugh again. "You may have to beg me."

"I can do that." He shifts backwards, getting comfortable under the blankets, and it occurs to me, belatedly, that I have once again neglected to pleasure him in return. As if reading my mind – I swear, he knows me entirely too well – he says, "You don't have to return the favor, Katniss. I told you, I like touching you. It helps me feel close to you. Well, obviously, but you know. Grounded."

I didn't know that, but it makes sense, I suppose. My kiss did keep him in the present in the Capitol.

"I'll return the favor tomorrow," I promise anyway.

"Well, I won't turn that down," he says with a laugh.

I mean to reply, but it's late and I've climaxed twice in the past hour, and I'm suddenly too tired to say anything at all.

* * *

I wake up cold, but not for lack of blankets. They've been tucked around me, sealing me in a soft nest of fabric. It's Peeta's heat I'm missing. I yawn and register the meaty aroma of sausages. He must be downstairs already, making breakfast.

The bed ate my nightshirt and panties, so I wrap myself in a quilt to hop across the room and dig around in the dresser. I dress quickly and brush out my hair, taking care with the snarls that developed during our activities last night, and descend into the kitchen. Peeta stands over the woodstove in the corner, flipping sausage patties and fried eggs. Strange – he usually prefers bacon, and takes his eggs scrambled. And… is that coffee brewing?

I rise up on tip-toes to lean my chin on his shoulder and he jumps.

"We must have gotten a lot less sleep than I thought if you're making coffee," I tease.

"Ah," he says softly, "Well, yes. I suppose."

I frown. He sounds… odd. That's the only way to put it. Even in those few words, he doesn't sound quite like himself. His voice is too quiet, and his inflections are ever so slightly off. For a split second, I think he might be having a flashback, but then I dismiss the thought. There's absolutely nothing to support that idea. Nothing set him off. He's calm. He doesn't sound angry, or tense, or scared. I'm just being paranoid because of what Doctor Aurelius said. Every time I look in his eyes I half expect _him_ – Mutt Peeta – to be looking back out at me.

But no, I remind myself, there is no Mutt Peeta. At least, not like Doctor Aurelius thinks.

"Are you all right?" I ask. "You sound weird. Are you getting sick?"

"No, no," he answers quickly. "At least, I don't think so. Just tired."

I turn my head to send a small smile in his direction. "That stands to reason." He slides the skillet off of the heat and turns to face me, and I take this as an invitation to lean in for a kiss. He gives a small sigh and wraps his arms around me, working his mouth against mine with slow, careful motions. The tenderness of the kiss surprises me; after last night, I had expected something fiery, or at least enthusiastic. But this isn't bad.

Peeta's cheeks are tinged pink when we pull apart. That can't be right. Peeta rarely blushes, and never over something as simple as a kiss. I lift the back of one hand to his forehead. He doesn't feel feverish, but still…

"Are you sure you're not coming down with something?"

He ducks his head and mumbles, "Um, yeah."

I stare at him. He takes the eggs off the stove and begins preparing two plates, and at last I say, "Okay."

But it's not okay. Because all through breakfast he's much too quiet and I keep noticing changes in him. They're all little, unimportant things – the way he arranges the food on his plate, the way he holds his fork, the way he licks his lips before speaking, when he does speak – but they add up. By the end of the meal I'm officially weirded out. It's like I've been transported to an alternate dimension where Peeta is, well, _shy_.

_And doesn't that sound familiar,_ that niggling voice whispers from back of my mind. _Does Mutt Peeta come from the dimension where Peeta is aggressive, then?_

I ignore it. Mutt Peeta isn't real. Peeta doesn't have that. I'm sure of it.

I find an excuse to call Doctor Aurelius after breakfast anyway.

The phone lines are working again, or maybe still. He picks up on the third ring. I go through with the cursory pleasantries, but my impatience must show in my voice, because soon he says, "I take it there's been a development?"

Quickly, I go over the events of the morning, detailing how Peeta didn't seem like himself. Guilt creeps up my spine for talking about him behind his back, and for the second time this week, no less, but I tell myself it's necessary. If something's wrong with him, it's better to get Doctor Aurelius's diagnosis and advice than to let it go unnoticed and untreated.

"Well," the doctor says lightly, "Looks like you've met another personality."

"No," I say.

"Beg pardon?"

"He doesn't have what you think he has."

"Explain," he says simply.

So I give him my reasons. I would know if there were other people living in Peeta's brain. It doesn't make any sense. I haven't seen any evidence of it. He just has flashbacks, like always.

But the more reasons I give, the further my heart sinks toward the floor. Wasn't Peeta acting like another person just minutes ago? Isn't that why I called? I have seen evidence of it. I've seen plenty of evidence. I just didn't want it to be true.

I know I've been lying to myself even before the doctor says, "Do you really believe that?"

I expel a long breath. At last I admit, "No."

"It's normal to feel incredulous at first," he says, and goes off on a rather long spiel about how my denial is normal, but I need to accept the truth eventually or risk harming Peeta or myself or both through negligence. I barely listen, because I already know all that. I know, and I have known all along.

When he finally finishes talking, I say, "What do I do?"

"Well," he says again, "If you're feeling up to it, I'd start by going and talking to the quiet personality you met at breakfast, if he or she is still around."

"He or she?" I repeat.

"Oh, yes. Alternate personalities usually have identities completely separate from the original, and that includes gender. They're called _personalities_ for a reason, you know. They have different genders, likes, dislikes, orientations, memories, the whole shebang."

I realize that I'm leaning heavily against the wall. The doctor sounds awfully chipper for someone telling me I could have kissed a female stranger living in Peeta's body this morning.

Doctor Aurelius tells me he has a meeting to attend soon and ends the call with a cheerful, "Remember, the most important thing you can do is make sure Peeta knows he's safe and loved."

I say goodbye faintly and the line goes dead, leaving me staring at the phone. Other people. Living in Peeta's head. Occasionally taking over his body. The idea is just as preposterous as when I first heard it, and at the same time I almost can't believe I denied it for so long. The puzzle pieces fit. It does make sense, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.

Deliberately, I replace the phone on its cradle. Doctor Aurelius is right. I need to go talk to Peeta. No matter who he is at the moment.


	8. Chapter Eight

I approach the living room fully intent on cornering Peeta – or, rather, not-Peeta – and demanding that he tell me who he is and what he wants right this instant. That is, if he _isn't_ Peeta. If he's one of the other people living in Peeta's head, or however the doctor explained it. If he _is_ Peeta, the real Peeta, well, I don't even want to think about the conversation that will have to take place. But if he _isn't_ … If he's one of the other "personalities," I am absolutely going to back him into a corner and get down to a much-needed interrogation.

_What do you want?_

_Does Peeta know about you?_

_Do you know who I am? Who Peeta is? Who you are? What you are?_

I roll the questions on my tongue, silently rehearsing what I'll say. I know I'll just trip all over the words if I don't, and that's something I can't afford right now. I have to be in control. Collected. Calm. Oh, who am I kidding? I am none of those things. My palms are damp and chill with sweat, and my thoughts rattle around in my head like moths, beating frantically against the inside of my skull and triggering a pulsing headache just behind my eye. But more than that, there's a sort of hollow trembling in my chest – an ache that quivers between my lungs, swelling with every breath.

I've stopped in the hall, gazing toward the living room doorway. The faint, low sounds of someone moving around the room register in the back of my brain, and the hunter part of me instinctively thinks _prey_. The rest of me is paralyzed.

What if I go in there and it's not really Peeta watching me through those blue eyes? Then again, what if it is?

I can't stop now. If I turn around, if I allow myself so much as a moment more to stand in the hall and gnaw the skin off my lower lip, I'll never make it into the living room. So I force my stiff legs forward, down the hallway, around the corner, through the door and into the living room.

One glance and I know: it's not Peeta. He's hovering near the couch, a closed book in hand, shifting his weight back and forth. His whole body radiates discomfort. His shoulders, drawn up to his ears under the bulky fabric of his sweater. His fingers, curled around the unfortunate book in a death grip. The set of his jaw.

"Hey." The word comes out aggressive, though I simply meant to get his attention, and I flinch at the tone of my own voice.

He jumps, too, and jerks around to face me.

"Who –" I begin, but then he's crossing the distance between us and before I fully realize what's happening he scoops me up in his arms.

Not exactly the response I was expecting.

"Katniss," he breathes. He butts his head against my shoulder, nuzzling me like a pup, and my arms go around him automatically to steady myself. He says it again – sighs it, really. "Katniss."

My lips part to reply – _Peeta?_ – before I remember why I'm here, and I clamp my mouth shut again.

But though anxiety boils in my skull, stiffening my muscles, the fear is swiftly draining away. I'm confused, apprehensive, but somehow I can no longer find it in me to be truly frightened. Whoever is holding me right now, nudging a cold nose against my pulse point and digging strong fingers into my back, simply isn't giving off an aura of danger. Quite the opposite. He – or she, I suppose – is clinging to me like a child seeking comfort. I can't bring myself to think of them as an enemy.

 _Could be a trap,_ that jaded part of me mutters, but I push it down. I don't even know for sure that this _is_ some other personality.

But I need answers, and I won't get them by standing silently in the middle of the room.

"Peeta?" I venture, and I can't tell if I'm imagining the way he stiffens at the word. "Do… Do you want to run through your list, maybe?"

He leans back and sets me gently on my feet, lips twisting quizzically. "Okay… Which list?"

There it is again. The barely detectable _strangeness_ in his words. The slight quirk of inflections. The way his lips purse just before speaking, such a small gesture but so unfamiliar it may as well be a neon flag. But then, I would have known without any of these clues. The real Peeta would know what list I was talking about. He would have recited it without hesitation.

But, just to give him the benefit of the doubt, I prompt, "Start with your name."

His gaze flickers away. His tongue pokes out to wet his bottom lip. And then, softly, "P-peeta."

_Liar._

I consider how to ease into the conversation, maybe relaying what Dr. Aurelius said, but nothing I rehearse in my mind sounds right. Besides, I've never been one to beat around the bush. I end up blurting, "No, you're not."

I don't know what I expected, but it sure wasn't immediate, paralyzing panic. His eyes widen almost comically, lips parting, and his hands start to tremor at his sides. "W-what," he tries to say, and then tries again, and once more, and every time he stutters on the W. Peeta never stutters. At last he manages to spit out, "W-wh-what do you m-mean?"

"I mean I've never heard you stutter in my life," I snap. "And you never drink coffee, or fry your eggs, or – or –" I break off in frustration, glowering at my feet. This isn't coming out at all how I wanted it to.

I see his hands move out of the corner of my eye, and when I glance up, they're covering his face. "Fuck," he mutters, and I startle slightly at the curse. "I – I messed it all up – sh-shouldn't have gotten up, shouldn't have d-done anything – always ruining things – fuck –"

A stab of pity arcs through me, and I try to soften my voice when I say, "What do you mean?"

He splays his fingers to peer between them with miserable eyes. Those are not Peeta's eyes. That is, they are, but the expressions and thoughts gleaming behind them are unmistakably those of another. "I didn't mean t-to," he begins, and then he gives a violent shudder and drops to his knees before me so fast I hear the prosthetic give a groan of protest. I stare down at him, bewildered. What is this? What is he _doing?_ Confusion drives me back a step and he makes this _noise,_ this horrible choked whimper, and I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do –

"Please don't leave us," he pleads, and I freeze. Us, he said, not me. That means he must have some idea of what he is. Doesn't it?

This whole thing feels wrong, and part of me wants to bolt and hope he's back to normal by the time I return, but another part of me keeps my feet firmly planted. Something about this person reminds me hauntingly of another blue-eyed blonde, and the instinct to protect is swelling in my gut. It occurs to me, distantly, that Dr. Aurelius said something about these personalities having different ages. Wasn't I just thinking his actions reminded me of a child seeking comfort? What if that's what he is? How can I turn and run from some poor, scared kid stuck in an older body? But then, children aren't generally fond of coffee, and I'm pretty sure this is the same personality I saw at breakfast…

"How old are you?" I rasp, my voice grating over the tissues of my throat.

His hands drift slowly to his knees, but his eyes remain downturned even as he uncovers his face. "A year or… or maybe two." He shrugs and wets his lips.

"No, I mean," I say, somehow unable to put what I want to know into words. I don't want to know how long he's existed; I want to know how old he is. How mature he is. If he's more like a five-year-old or more like a twenty-five-year-old. My hands stir, plucking at empty space as if I could pull the words out of the air.

Fortunately, he seems to understand. "Sixteen?" he says unsurely. "Something like that."

So, not a kid. Younger than Peeta, but… Really, could we have been considered young once we were reaped? In the Games, age barely makes a difference once you pass fourteen.

"Do you have a name?"

At last he looks up at me. "Sunny."

"Okay," I say stupidly. I can't shake the feeling of wrongness, and the absurdity of it all affects me like a rush of adrenaline, heightening some senses and numbing others until all I can feel is the itching roughness of carpet under the soles of my feet. "Um. I'm Katniss."

His mouth turns up at the corners, cheeks reddening, and suddenly all I can see is sixteen-year-old Peeta dressed in flames, saying, _"They suit you."_

"I know," the present-time Peeta says – no, not-Peeta, the other personality – no, Sunny, he said this name was Sunny – god, this is already too complicated.

I shift my weight awkwardly. "Right."

He hasn't moved, though I'm sure that position can't be comfortable, so I lower myself to the floor a few feet away. "You know you don't have to sit like that, right?"

His eyes flicker up again, and again I'm struck with just how oddly foreign and familiar it is, and how I swear I can see past the layers of burn scars and forced maturity, back to the Peeta that shook my hand in front of the reaping bowls. "You aren't mad?"

"No," I say, and I wonder what these two things have to do with each other – him kneeling and me being mad.

Tentatively, he settles into a more natural position, looking up at me from under his lashes the whole time like he's making sure I approve of the action.

"They thought I was _him,_ " he says suddenly. I'm not sure who _they_ are, but _he_ is almost certainly Peeta – real Peeta, that is. "I don't th-think they even knew I existed. I thought maybe if I c-could just pretend to be _him,_ and come out as little as possible, maybe everything would w-w-work out okay." His voice hitches and one of his wrists comes up to swipe at a cheekbone and – is he crying? "S-sorry. I just… I don't know…"

Not knowing what else to do, I fall back on old instincts. My arms lift in offering as if it was Posy or Vick or even Pr– _no, don't think her name_ – sniffling in front of me. To my surprise, he barely hesitates before scooting across the carpet and tucking himself into my arms. His frame is much larger than my own, so it's a rather ungainly position, but he doesn't seem to mind. In fact, his breaths begin to even out after just a few moments.

"I don't know the rules," he goes on, speaking into my collar. He says the last word like it has a capital R: _Rules_. A heartbeat later, he straightens with a jerk and the top of his head smashes into my chin. Hopeful blue eyes seek out my own across mere inches of space. "But you could tell me, couldn't you?"

"What?" I rub at my chin with a wince. "Tell you what?"

 His face falls. "The _rules_. I don't know the rules."

"What rules? What are you talking about?"

"The rules," he repeats, looking at me like if he stares at me hard enough he can make me understand. Then he drops his gaze again and he's back to examining the carpet.

"Why are you here?" I find myself muttering. "How? I – I don't understand."

He shrugs again. "I d-don't know." And then, after a pause, "Peeta needed help." He begins raking his nails through the carpet in a twitchy, nervous gesture. "Peeta needed – well, me, I guess."

"Why?"

His whole frame goes rigid. His fingers stop picking at the carpet, his eyes screw shut, and for the first time, he refuses to answer me.

* * *

 Sunny stays until the afternoon. We don't leave the living room – at least, he doesn't make any attempt to leave, and every time I so much as move an inch towards the door his eyes fill with panic and his hands tremble at his sides. So I stay.

I'm staring unseeingly at an open book, curled into a tight ball at one end of the couch while Peeta – _Sunny_ – paces and fiddles with the curtains, occasionally coming to perch on the opposite end of the couch before getting up again. Every time I move or clear my throat, he glances at me, like he's waiting for something. Like he's waiting for me to do something. And I don't know what he wants me to do. I just want Peeta back. I can't take the hopeful expectation in his eyes any longer. Whatever he wants from me, I can't give it to him.

It's when I get up for lunch that I realize something has changed.

"I'm getting food," I say, heaving myself to my feet with popping joints. Not that I really want food; I'm not hungry. But I have to do _something_.

I fully expect his gaze to flash towards me – which it does. What I wasn't expecting was the way he blinks, as if in surprise, looks quickly around the room, and says, "What?"

"Lunch?" I say.

He looks back at me, the skin between his eyes pinched in a puzzled frown. "Right."

His voice. It's different. And his posture – less uncertain. My breath catches at the back of my throat in an audible click, and then I'm staring into his eyes from across the room, searching his gaze intently.

"Peeta?"

"Yeah?" His puzzlement shifts to concern. "What's wrong?"

I'm across the room and grasping at his shoulders before he can get the last word out. He stumbles, catches himself against the wall and huffs out a quiet, "Huh?"

"What did they do?" My voice rasps over the question, the pent-up tension of the last few hours releasing all at once like a snapped bowstring. I knot my fingers into the back of his sweater and butt my forehead against the soft hollow of his throat, breathing and feeling and soaking in _Peeta_. It should be no different – it's the same sweater, after all, the same smell, the same heartbeat that pushed against my skin when the other personality embraced me – but somehow it's entirely different. I can tell this is Peeta, _my_ Peeta, just as I could tell that Sunny wasn't.

"Katniss, what –?" he starts. "What do you mean? Who?"

"What did they do to make you – make _him_ like that? He was so –"

I don't know what word I want. What _was_ Sunny? Shy? Not exactly.

 _Submissive,_ I realize with a shudder. Sunny was submissive. Kneeling, keeping his head down, avoiding extended eye contact. Like a low-ranking wolf in a pack. What the hell did the Capitol do to Peeta to create that?

"Who was what? Katniss, please answer me. Who are you talking about? Did –" I feel him tense under my grip and his throat contracts in a swallow. "Did I have a flashback? Did I hurt you?"

He's pushing me back by the shoulders, looking over my face, rolling up my sleeves to check my arms.

I shake my head. "No."

A kind of desperation comes into his voice and eyes as his hands cease their probing to land on either side of my face. "Please don't lie."

"I'm not."

"I don't remember!" His fingers, warm and sweat-damp, being to tremble again where they rest against my skin. "I don't – you said _lunch_. It's afternoon. The last thing I remember is falling asleep last night. I blacked out again, I –" A choking gasp cuts off his words. "It's been happening more often and I thought it was – I thought – Katniss, please, what's happening to me?"

His voice closes in a low moan, raw and terrified, like the noise an animal makes when it's caught in a trap that failed to instantly kill it. His head comes to rest against mine as he shakes with a sob.

"What's happening to me?" he repeats in a whisper. Tiny, hot drops of saltwater touch my jaw and run down my neck. He's crying.

That's what does it.

I've never been especially good at saying the right thing, especially when it comes to words of comfort, but try my absolute best now. Sliding one arm up to cradle his head against my shoulder, rocking, murmuring, nuzzling my face against his hair.

"You're okay," I promise, even though I know that to him they're empty words. "You're okay. Please, don't. It's okay, it's just – just –"

But how do I tell him? What do I say?

"What did Doctor Aurelius say when you talked to him?" I say instead.

Peeta gives a shaky, miserable shrug, and it reminds me so much of the other personality that I have to lean back and look him in the face to make sure it's still really him. "Just asked about my flashbacks. Said he had a theory or something. Why?"

I stop biting at my lips, take a breath and say, "He thinks you have – I don't remember what he called it. Some sort of condition or disorder – it's not bad!" I blurt as his face goes pale. "I mean, not necessarily, just –"

"Tell me."

"He thinks your brain developed other personalities to help cope with your torture," I say at last in near monotone. It sounds ridiculous – and why shouldn't it? I didn't believe it either, not really, not until I met Sunny. I'm still not sure I fully believe it.

Peeta obviously doesn't, either.

"What?" He shakes his head, then gives a short, humorless laugh, and then he goes still again. "What?"

"I don't really know. He didn't explain very much."

"Other – what, personalities? Like other minds? Other people?"

"Sort of. I think so. Peeta, I know how it sounds, but I just met one and –"

He laughs again. It's the rough, hollow kind of laugh that people do when they want to force down a sob. "Katniss, that's not – no." He shakes his head. Pushes past me. "No."

Before I can stop him he's in the hall, pounding up the stairs. I don't need the angry rhythm of his footsteps to tell me he's going straight for the phone.

* * *

 Peeta stays on the phone for a long time. First there's yelling, and then there's a gut-wrenching period of sobs, and then more yelling. I stay downstairs, partly because I want to give him his privacy and partly because I don't think I could handle seeing him right now.

I find myself shuffling around the kitchen, telling myself that I'm going to eat, but of course I don't. I just stand between the table and the oven, hugging myself, swaying slightly and listening to the muffled rise and fall of Peeta's voice through the ceiling. A chill creeps through my limbs, but I can't seem to move them. I can only stand and stare into nothingness until my vision tunnels and the seconds spin into a meaningless, colorless void. When I come back to my body it's only because my knees locked up and I swayed so badly I nearly toppled face-first into the counter. I stumble on numb feet, grasping at the counter's edge, and blink hard against the dull shimmer in my vision. Somewhere, in the deep folds of my mind, there's a little cry of dismay – betrayal, almost. I've grown so used to Peeta finding me halfway through these episodes of blankness and calling me back with soft words and warm hands that returning from one now, alone and shuddering with cold in a darkening kitchen, is unthinkable.

Slowly, I pinch stiff fingers around the curtains and tug them shut. I'm present enough to realize that I shouldn't risk trying to light a fire in this state, so I go to the light switch instead, wincing at the barely audible whine of the overhead bulb as it blinks to life. Hours have passed. The sun sets early in winter, but not early enough for me to fool myself into thinking I was only gone for a few minutes.

I lift my eyes to the ceiling, squinting against the yellowish glare of the light. Peeta has gone silent. He's not on the phone anymore. But he hasn't sought me out, either, not even to check on me. He's probably mad at me. He's probably furious with me. For keeping secrets, for lying, for talking about him to Dr. Aurelius behind his back. I don't blame him.

Somehow, I end up in front of the sink, staring down at a small pile of dirty dishes and utensils. I must have turned the faucet on, because water rises over the lip of a plate, then a bowl, then a cup. In the silent house, the faucet roars, and every click of china is a gunshot. Steam touches my face, and when I plunge my hand into the water to retrieve a dropped bottle of soap, my skin comes out red and throbbing with pain. The scalding water brings me jolting back to myself, and I hiss through my teeth as I reach out to slam on the cold water.

I've just gotten the temperature down to something bearable when I feel the beat of footsteps through the walls. A second later I begin to hear them, too, descending the stairs with sloth-like haste. I pretend not to hear as Peeta crosses the hall and stops in the kitchen doorway. Some petty part of me won't forgive him for leaving me to drift away from my body for so long without even checking on me, even though I know it's him that really has the right to be angry, not me. Still, when he crosses the kitchen and I can't pretend not to notice him anymore, I keep my face rigid and my gaze down.

I'm bracing myself for the anger – the, "Why didn't you tell me?" or the "I trusted you," or the "You're a real piece of work, aren't you?" – so at first I don't understand when he takes a little breath and says, "What do I do?"

I shove my arms into the sink, grabbing the first thing I find and scrubbing away at it with a dishrag hard enough to wear a hole through the china. When I don't respond, he leans heavily against the counter and says, "Are you okay?"

I grunt.

Peeta sighs, rubs his hands over his face, and dips one hand distractedly into the water. It emerges with a soup bowl, which he stares at without making any move to wash.

"I'm sorry," I blurt, startling both of us. Out of the corner of my eye I see his head turn to look at me, but I can't move my gaze from the stupid flowery pattern on the plate I'm holding.

"It's okay," he tries to say, but I cut him off with a tight throat.

"It's not."

"Fine," he agrees dully. "It's not okay."

After standing side-by-side, silent, for several seconds, both of us begin scrubbing at dishes again, if only to give our hands something to do. Peeta fills the other side of the sink with clean water to rinse. The overhead light buzzes.

"I dissociated again," I admit quietly.

His shoulders curl forward. "Are you okay?"

I shrug, waiting for him to pull me into a hug, or kiss me, or even just rest one hand on my arm, because Dr. Aurelius is always saying that physical touch is a good way to fight that kind of thing, but he doesn't. He just wipes off the bowl with utmost precision and sets it in the rack to dry.

"You're mad," I say.

"Yeah."

"At me."

His hands pause, then return to washing. "No. Yes. Partly."

"Just say it."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

There it is. The thing I've been waiting for him to say this whole time. And yet, now that he's said it, I suddenly can't summon a single one of the barbed replies I had tucked under my tongue. All at once I'm exhausted.

I end up muttering, "I didn't believe it."

"But you do now?"

I shrug again, and we fall back into silence, but it's a better silence than before. It's a silence of shared unease, not of mutual resentment. My elbow bumps his when I reach into the water for a serving spoon, and a moment later his shoulder presses against mine. I allow myself to lean into the little touch, and the tension leaves the air, draining away into the water with the soap and sodden crumbs. I know he feels it too by the way his breath leaves him in a slow rush and his shoulders lose some of their hunched form.

Just when I think he's not going to speak again, he does.

"These other – personalities," Peeta says, haltingly. "How many…?"

"Two." I poke my thumb through a hole in the fraying dishrag. "At least, I've only met two."

For a moment, there's only the slosh of hot, soapy water as we stare down at the jumble of dishes, each waiting for the other to speak. At last he says, "What are they like?"

"They," I start, and then I stop, because what can I possibly say that would sum up the both of them? Sunny and the other one, the violent one, they're nothing alike. "They're opposites," I eventually decide. "The one is shy, and the other is… decidedly not." I don't say what I was about to say – that the other one is abrasive, even aggressive – because Peeta already looks so miserable, and the last thing I want to do is reinforce the idea that he's done something wrong.

He's silent for a moment more, and then, quietly, "Do they have names?"

"Sunny. The shy one is called Sunny."

I can tell he's waiting for more, so I take a long, unsteady breath and continue.

"He's young. Younger than us, I mean. He said he feels like he's about sixteen. He hates being alone and – and he knows what he is, Peeta." I drop the dishrag with a soft splash and turn to look him in the eyes for the first time since he came down the stairs. "He knows. He's been hiding it, though, pretending to be you. I confronted him about it, and he – he was terrified. He thought that – I don't know, that he was going to be… punished or something. I don't know."

He swallows. His eyes are locked onto mine, unfaltering, like he's trying to find the words in my eyes before I speak them. "How long have you… how _often_ have you been talking to them?" he says. The question rises with a note of choked panic, and my hands reach for his, feeling out his soap-slick fingers and squeezing under the hot water.

"Just the once. I only just found out yesterday. I talked to Sunny for the first time today, and I haven't seen the other one since –"

I cut off and Peeta's hands tighten around my own underwater.

"Since what?" he probes. "Katniss?" And then his face changes, falls, tightens. "He hurt you, didn't he? My flashback. It wasn't a flashback, was it?"

"He didn't," I try to say, but he's already shaking his head, his palms going slack under my grip. "He didn't," I repeat with more certainty. "The other one – the one with no name – he hasn't hurt me. He's blunt – mean – and not… I mean, not exactly gentle, but I swear, he hasn't hurt me. He's the one I was talking about when I said he picked me up but put me down when I told him to. He didn't hurt me, Peeta. You didn't hurt me."

My hands have, by now, left the slippery water and found their way to his face, hovering over his cheeks, skin dripping and fingers curling as I scramble to reassure him. He watches me, taking in my ramblings with a pinched brow, and then his hands leave the water, too. He pushes his palms over my knuckles so that my hot, soapy skin meets his cheeks.

"I don't know what to do." The fragility in his voice is back, and a moment later he collapses entirely against me. I give a shallow gasp and clutch him to me. I hadn't realized how starved I was for touch. Now, with his spine curved to press his face into my throat and his forearms braced against the small of my back, I'm dizzy with relief.

He talks into my neck. "This is crazy. You realize that, right? It's impossible. I knew I was – _different_ when I had my episodes, but _this_ is… People, Katniss. Two entirely separate people in my head. In _me_."

"I know."

"I don't want this. I don't want them."

"I know."

"I'm scared."

I bite down on my tongue to swallow the _me too_ that's swelling at the base of my throat. My fingers, wet and soapy as they are, wander to the back of his head. The pads of my fingers press down, rooting through messy hair until they find skin, as if I could feel the pulse of two extra minds through his skull. One that called me a bitch and one that clung to me for comfort. And Peeta, with suds dripping off his elbows and tremors going through his whole body, at the mercy of both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. You may be saying, "Gasp! A chapter of Those Blizzard Months... with no smut!? What did I even read this for then? I am betrayed!" Have no fear, my friends, smut shall abound in chapters to come. Patience. Oh, yeah, and sorry about the whole not-updating-for-like-a-year-and-a-half thing. Oops. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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